A letter to my daughter on her 11th birthday

Today is celebrating you. It’s your day. It’s the day you met the world. Remember that celebrating you today isn’t simply about streamers, balloons, presents, and candy apples. It also means creating space to think about your life, who you are, and who you want to be.

I have dreams for you, my lovely daughter, wishes for you that birthdays bring to the surface. I have messages I want you to hear from me, sometimes very clearly in word like today but always very clearly in my ordinary conversations and interactions.

I want hope for you. I want you to know that you always have hope no matter what, that you are never stuck where you are, hope that there is always another opportunity, always a way, that there is not simply always a “better” but there is always a “best” that you are moving towards.

I want meaning and purpose for you. You were created by God with His purpose in your very spirit. When you wonder and you wander, I want you to remember that there is never a day—never a moment—that is without meaning and purpose for you.

I want joy for you. I want your heart to be filled with joy to the point of overwhelming. And, when it is not, I want you to choose to go to the One who can fill it again with expectancy in your heart knowing that He is able to do just that.

I want connection for you. You were made for relationship; it’s how you are wired. I want you to fill your life with others to both serve them and be served by them. Within those relationships, I want you to experience beauty over and over and a picture of what it means to be in relationship with the One who made you.

I want inspiration for you. I want you to be able to stop moving and stop doing long enough to be notice the amazing around you. I want you to not feel like you are competing with others but that you are inspired by them to press on in the unique path set before you.

I want kindness for you. I want you to seek to do good towards others without cause or reason not because it’s the right thing to do—though it is—but because you know what it feels like to receive undeserved kindness and that your response to the kindness you have been shown both from others and from God would simply give you a spirit of kindness towards others.

I want victory for you. I take great pleasure in having a front row seat to your success, my love. And, I know you will succeed in so much. But, you will taste failure at some point. It is what we call inevitable; life isn’t life without the experience of failure. You are not perfect; and, therefore, failure will come in the context of performance and in the context of relationship. It’s unavoidable. But, I want you to experience God in those moments. I want you to see your need for Him. And, I want you to redefine victory, to see it not as the world sees it as meaning that you win. I want you to see victory as knowing when you need to learn from a failure and press on and when you need to step back with humility and encourage someone else to step up. Both are fully victorious.

I want gratitude for you. In all situations, every day, when things are hard, when things are not, when you are energized and excited, when you are tired and feel unable to go on, when you cannot help but smile, when you want to rest your head on your arms and not move, no matter what, I want you to be able to call out the good and see that you are blessed.

These are the messages I want you to hear as we celebrate you today and dream about the young woman you are becoming. And, you know what? They are the messages I need to hear too. Listen to them now. Read them over and over until you know what each word means. And, then I am inviting you now to remind me of them when I need reminding. I may seem old to you, and maybe I sort of am. But, I’m not too old to want big things for me too, to not only be better but be the best I can be too. And, I think God gave you to me to help me get there.