When a letter to your daughter...turns into a reminder to yourself....

My precious girl,

I see you.  I see the way you are getting yourself all 'dolled' up.  I see you putting on your fancy purple heels with your multi-colored string of pearls.  I see the way you are ever so carefully putting that plastic lipstick on your innocent lips.  I see the way you are putting all the necessities you need in that cute little girl purse.

I hear you.  I hear the excitement in your voice.  I hear you as you tell me you are off to Prince Mickey's ball.  I hear the anxiousness in your voice, if that's even possible for being such a little girl in such a big pretend world.

I watch you as you tell me that you are in a rush and need to go.  You don't want to miss the Prince.  You can't wait until he dances with you and makes you feel so special and loved.  You tell me you are going to marry him and how you love him so.....

I didn't expect this you know, sweet girl.  I didn't expect you having these thoughts and feelings and desires at such a young tender age of 3.  I didn't expect you to understand the desire of wanting a special boy to love you that way...even if in your innocent pure mind it is Prince Mickey at the moment.  I thought this would be something that came later in life.  When you were older and we could talk about it in a very real sense.  When I could tell you to guard your heart.  That Jesus loves you far more than any man on this earth will and therefore you don't have to go searching for that special boy to make you feel all the things your heart desires. See if you were older it would seem, in a way, easier to have these talks with you.  Right now you seem so young and fragile....so pure and innocent....

But baby girl, the truth is we were all born with that longing to have someone love us that way.  With the desire to have someone see us for who we are and love us in every area of our hearts.  Someone to make us feel special and adored.  So I don't know why it took me by surprise when you started with this obsession of pretending to go meet your prince.  I don't know why I'm shocked when I see you play with Mickey and Minnie while making them dance and fall in love.

And so I will take this opportunity to let you start to know that Jesus will always make you feel special and loved in a way no human can.  That you can have that feeling of being loved and adored right now, right here.  I know someday you will want the real thing.  A man to call your own.  A love story that is real and true...something that isn't pretend.  So until that day comes I pray that the Lord reminds me and your daddy daily that you are watching our own love story.  You are watching how we treat one another.  You are watching the way we show our love.  Our words and actions to one another matter more than they ever have before.  We both want you to one day fall for someone who is warm and kind.  Someone who loves the Lord.  Someone who will be just as tender with your heart as we try to be.  And we know the best way to get you to understand this is by starting with ourselves...

I pray that you see how much we fight for one another and not just against.  I pray you see us say I love you as much as we can.  I pray you see that yes, love can be hard but at the end of the day we put each other above ourselves.  That while love isn't easy, it is worth it.  Our marriage isn't perfect baby girl because we aren't perfect.  And while you dream of a fairy tale that is as great as in the movies, I hope that you can see in us that while that's not real, the real thing is far more valuable.

And while I thought writing this would be something to help teach you something, at the end of it I realize instead it's teaching me.  At such a young age your little mind and heart is so impressionable.  You see things in a way that we as adults don't.  Even when we don't think you notice, our marriage to each other has a huge impact on you.  What we say, what we do, how we react to each other....you see it all.  You notice it all.  And it is shaping your heart and how you think about love.

And so finally I pray that you always keep believing in that fairy tale kind of love.  Because if you do, it gives me hope that me and your daddy aren't failing at this thing called marriage.  That maybe we are doing it right.  Because if you still believe in that kind of fairy tale love....it means your daddy and I have maybe shown you that in some sense....it truly does exists.....