These are my girls.

They are probably the most precious things in my whole life, capable of producing extreme emotion in me that I didn’t know existed. They make me cry, they make me yell, they make me laugh, love and sing. When they succeed my heart overflows with joy and when they lose, my heart ache’s in ways I never knew was possible.

These are my girls.

There is something unique about the father daughter relationship, and from the day my oldest (Sadie), took her first breath in this broken world I felt it, sensed it, and began to realize just how scary it really is to be part of it. Unless you are a father of girls you cannot fully connect with the thrill and pain that comes with this powerful relationship.

I love it, and I hate it all at the same time. I want to protect, coddle and uphold her, but I also want her to live, learn grow and fly. The hardest thing to realize is that often times in order to see them grow the way they need to we have to release them, let them fall, and let them fail. They need to make their own choices, even when they are the wrong ones. Bottom line, the incredible joy that comes with having daughters is inevitably accompanied by heart ache.

I am at a wedding this weekend, a wedding in which the bride’s family is far closer than most, which creates an interesting dynamic when two families come together to celebrate the couple. I don’t know the father of the Bride very well, but don’t need to in order to watch him struggle with the idea of giving his daughter away. He has clearly done all the analyzing, asked all the questions and ultimately concluded that this man is not good enough for his daughter. He is going along with it all because he has too, he knows he will not ultimately win his daughters heart by rejecting the man she loves, so he bites the bullet and jumps on the band wagon.

Its not that he doesn’t like him or that he is a bad guy, its simply the reality that no one is good enough for his little girl. NO ONE!

The crazy thing is that this man is not just ok, someone to put up with or hope comes through in the long run… this guy is an Amazing guy. This guy is one of the good ones, if not one of the best ones. He loves her, respects her, and would gladly give his life to honor her. He has taken the criticism of her family head on and chose to love and respect them in the midst of it. He is amazing, the kind of man I pray my daughter ends up with, and yet he will still never be enough… It makes me angry and yet at the same time…

I get it!

My daughter starts middle school this year, and that has caused my heart to begin doing a little extra thinking. It may be a long time before I go through the experience of “Giving her away,” but I am already swimming in the waters of that moments incredible emotions.

I have decided to begin preparing for it now… praying about it today and asking God to give me a different kind of wisdom and discernment in the releasing of my daughters. I am praying for God to give my heart the freedom to give them the freedom they need to make their choices. At the heart level I know and believe that God knows them, and loves them better than I ever could, but that doesn’t seem to make it any easier.

I don’t want to be that father that has been blessed with a son-in-law who will only continue to reproduce my values in her, love her, honor her and lead her, and reject him because I cannot get passed my own insecurities.

I love my daughters more than life itself, and because of that love I need God to remove the blinders at the right time and remind me that He is in control and loves them more than I ever could. Let it be so!

A few weeks ago I started a new sermon series I titled “Beautiful Collision.” The series examines the invasion of God’s grace and person in a broken and fallen world. More specifically I am looking at the mess God created in the lives of real people in scripture when He chose to enter their lives and, “Mix it up.”

We love the idea that God would choose to love us, befriend us, and know us, but for the characters in scripture that I am looking at, more often than not, their interactions with the God of the universe were anything but comforting. When a divine God comes into contact with sinful man, it is certain to be messy, ugly at times and even confusing, but at the same time it will always be marked by beautiful life change.

This week I am looking at King Solomon. 

King Solomon was the second son of King David and Bathsheba. Conceived by a relationship that began in sin, with adultery and murder as his legacy, along with redemption and forgiveness, King Solomon was chosen by God to not only sit on King David’s throne but to author scripture, to be the mouth of God himself.

Solomon is so interesting because he lived a life that all of us would probably sign up for in a heart beat. So many of the men and women I have been looking at had nothing but hard, their entire lives. Not so with King Solomon. God chose him for the opposite. 

Unmatched wisdom?

Riches?

Servants?

Power?

Glory, honor and fame?

yeah, sure, I’ll sign up for that. Where’s a pen? 

I’m sure there were times when even Solomon himself wondered how he got so lucky. He basked in his own glory, bathed in his immense power and marveled at his perfect wisdom. So much so that he ultimately forgot who gave it all to him and turned his back on God. 

But what is so fascinating about Solomon’s collision with God is what God wanted to teach all of us through his story. 

My truth for this Sunday, “It’s all gonna burn.”

Solomon had it all, and ultimately concluded that it was all worthless, without meaning, unable to satisfy.

There may not be another human being in a better position to draw a conclusion like this, because there is likely no one who has ever walked his shoes. For most of us there is always more to attain, for Solomon there was truly nothing. He saw it all, had it all, lived it all, and found it all entirely worthless. 

My prayer for this Sunday is that we would learn from this life. We would give up fighting to attain and achieve, have and hold, and we would surrender our lives to what is truly satisfying, what is truly worth living for. 

The King and His kingdom are the only things that will never end. That is the reason they are satisfying and worth pursuing in this life.

Thank you Solomon for your words in Ecclesiastes. 

Fresh starts are great aren’t they?

There is something about a new day, new chance, fresh start. We like new years, the first day of the month, and Mondays… ok, maybe not Monday’s, but there is something to starting new.

Well, I am starting new with my blogging life. For some reason or other Google messed up my old blog, so I have decided to create a new blog and dive in a little deeper. If you followed me before I’d love to have you listen in again. I don’t promise it will be worth reading, but if you are into hearing really raw thoughts from the brain of scattered individual, this is the place for you.

I don’t do much editing or sensor anything I write, that’s the point, so understand what you are getting yourself into as you read. I find a place to write where I don’t have to think first is like free therapy for my “Left brain.”

So thanks for joining my journey, at what ever level you choose to, and feel free to comment any time you feel the urge.

Peace for now