Isaiah 43:1

“It’s a girl!” they said… and I cried. The moment was so surreal and precious and overwhelming that the emotion just couldn’t remain bottled up any longer. I’d been a little preoccupied for the last several hours, what with all the pain and pushing and breathing and such, and I hadn’t had time for an emotional breakdown. But now, ready or not, here came this perfect little person into the world, needing love and attention and nourishment and… me. Needing me. And it was Heaven.

Fast forward fifteen years. Highschool. Friends. Boys. Clothes. Boys. Friends. You get the picture… we’ve all been there, been that age. We’ve all experienced the joys and frustrations of attempting to find our sense of belonging, our sense of identity, in the other members of our circle, our clique, our crowd. The drama inevitably unfolds and we are lured down the dark alley of exclusion, which leads to self-doubt, mistrust and broken hearts.

As my daughter was experiencing some of these feelings last year, I took it upon myself to remind her just how precious and perfect she was. That’s what moms are supposed to do, right, make everything ok? So I sat down to write her a love letter. A simple reminder of who she is, beyond the boundaries of any circle or crowd. Who she is at the core, what she means to me, where her true sense of belonging is found… in Jesus.