Reflections on launching my baby girl

I’m sitting in my backyard looking at all the preparations for my daughter’s wedding this weekend. Its been a big project and we are certainly looking forward to seeing her united with her soon-to-be husband. He’s a great guy and we are very thankful for this new season of her life she’s launching into…and emotional too

As this day has approached it has reminded me multiple times how grateful I am for the investment we’ve had the privilege to make in Sarah’s life. It certainly hasn’t been easy. She was a STRONG willed child, to say the least! But these past 23 years have been worth every effort, every prayer, and every late night conversation when we didn’t feel like it. It seemed like she always wanted to talk at the most inconvenient times, like as we were falling into bed, exhausted and desperate for sleep.

I thought I would share a few things we would do all over again…

Prayer – we prayed daily for this girl and her siblings. We also prayed for her future mate, who turned out to be Patrick. What we didn’t know but found out this week was that Patrick’s parents were praying for Sarah as well. They just didn’t know her yet. I’m thankful for every prayer with her and for her. God is the only one who can truly parent your kids in the best way possible. He’ll cover your many mistakes in ways that are beautiful and gracious.

Conversations – sometimes you don’t feel like talking to your kids and many times they don’t want to talk to you, but those are usually the times those conversations are most needed. Lean-in and have that talk, give that input, ask those probing questions. It is so worth it. You will absolutely be thankful you did it!

Love – this seems like such an obvious one but I really don’t think it is, at least not in the sense that Jesus loves us. Loving our kids means choosing the best, even when it costs me. Sometimes that means sacrificing our time and our agenda, we get that. The one we tend not to get is that sometimes it means choosing their best and its not at all what they want. In other words, sometimes it means saying ‘no’ and they don’t like you for a while. Trust me, they’ll love you for it later if it was truly for their best.

That’s just a few reflections I’ve been having this week as my baby girl prepares to ‘fly the coop’.