To My Girls......

Someday my girls you will come home all secretly happy and glowing.  You will smile for no reason, be kinder to your father and me.  You will take more time with your hair, pick out clothes with more care.  You will laugh and sing and your eyes will dance.

You will have found him.

I want you to know that I want this to happen.  That your father prays each night over you - prays for you and prays for your future husband, whoever, wherever he might be.  He is a vigilant father, standing watch over his girls, his future and yours.  He will protect you, he will love you and cherish you.  His heart will break just a bit when it is time to let you go to but he is aware that this time will come.

Choose wisely, girls.  Have you seen how your father loves?

Choose a man such as this.

Your father loves completely.  He is the typical husband - the one that checks the locks, fill the gas tank, changes the oil, pays the bills, goes to work each day and ensures that we all have a home that keeps us warm and secure.

But, oh, he is so much more than that.

Each Christmas I am reminded of how much he loves, how much he listens, how much he knows my very heart.  For there is no one better than your father in giving of himself.

I wasn't sure that a trip to Florida with the girls and a weekend away with another couple could be topped.  I mean, really, where do you go from there?  Last Christmas, surely, that was the gift that beat all gifts for all time.

Nope.

This Christmas I open my e-mail which takes me to a link which takes me to a website.  The website has all the months of the coming year listed.  Each click, each month takes me to pictures of friends, a date, a time.  My dear, sweet husband contacted each of my friends - friends from childhood, friends from college, friends from the first days of motherhood and just made friends - and set up dates throughout the year when I could meet with them.  There are whole weekends set aside to go visit a friend in Kentucky, there is a game night with a sister-in-law and my mom, there is a girl's night with 7 of the girls, there is a night with the families of college friends.  It's all set up, all worked out.

I cried a little bit.  He who knows my heart made my heart sing.  And it got better............

He wrote a check to here and here.  He heard me.  He knew that my heart cried out, was touched by Sarah Terwey and her work, her children, her organization.  He loved, and he loved in a big way.

I cried a little bit more.

Girls, I pray that you choose a man that listens, that loves, that sees your heart and responds to it.  Watch your father, my girls, watch and learn.  Learn what to look for in a man, a husband.  No one loves you more in this world than your father.  There will be hard times, times when you wish he would back off, leave you alone.  Times when you wish he would be less present, less part of your world than he is, I am sure.  But know that this is done in love.  This man has stood at your bedside and watched you sleep.  This man has sung you to sleep, has paced the floors with you in his arms.  This man has dressed the part of a knight to rescue his princess from danger in the plays you have asked him to be in.  This man has run to your side when you have cried in the night.  This man has sacrificed for you - his time, his energy, his everything because you are his everything.

You are so lucky, my girls.  Remember this.  We will be praying.  We will be loving.  We will be anticipating.  It will be hard.......when you come home sparkling and excited and loving another.  But this man who loved you first, who loved you best will one day step aside, knowing that his job is done and has been done well.  He will walk you down the aisle and into the arms of another man, trusting this man to hold you as he has done for so many years, to love and cherish and protect as he has done.  And in this moment he will probably remember those years of pacing and loving and watching and it will be hard.  He, most likely, will cry and his heart will break but he will be proud of the women that you have become, the women that he helped to shape and grow.

Choose a man such as this.