For My Daughter

Published on Sep 2, 2013
I spent the day with my wife registering for our baby shower and surprisingly it was fun being able to see what things we would need to care for our daughter after her birth. There's no shortage of days or hours for that matter that I don't imagine what my daughter will be like or do. How will she smile? What will be her first words? What will be her hair color? And on the questions usually go. Though for all the questions and imagining I do I still can't believe that I still have to wait four more months. My wife has only recently been able to distinguish the different between her own body and our daughters kicks. She gets excited to feel her growing inside of her and I know when its happening because she stops in mid-sentence and holds her belly. Most of the time I simply watch her as a smile grows across her face and then every so often I try to feel for our daughter myself, but she hasn't grown to that point, yet. For all the planning and preparing that both of us try to do as we wait for that eventful day I spend a lot of time muttering or writing in my notebook about the type of father I will be for her. The more I think about the more I find myself coming back to the same point that my one job is to love her and point her to God. I know that along the road I will forget that through all the busyness of her life in raising our daughter that my primary responsibility is to guide her to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. I want her to know His mercy and love for her far out weighs my own, but that doesn't scare me or make me fell inadequate because He chose me to be her father and while I have her I will shower her with the same love and knowledge that He has provided to me. When my daughter comes to know God she will understand that He will never let her down. He will never abandon her in her times of need. Her life will always be care for much more than my wife and I could ever imagine with God on her side. I guess what I mean after all this is that while my daughter is still growing I want her to know that her father and mother love her always, but more so I want her to know that God is laying up plans for her that I can't even begin to imagine that will result in her eternal salvation. Despite my best intentions or prayers the one path I want for my daughter is that she will choose Him not because I have, but because she desperately wants Him in her heart and life. There isn't a better place I can hope for her, nor a more truthful direction my daughter than to have a one-on-one relationship with Jesus Christ. ## Christ's Prayer to the Father > “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” > John 17:20-26
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Justin Hough

Chief Development Officer at Hounder. He is a Christian, husband, father, writer, developer, designer, and a digital carpenter crafting amazing web experience. Also, created the Centurion Framework many moons ago.