You don’t fit on my lap anymore.⁣
I can barely carry you.⁣
Not that you’re ever still enough for either.

You are a giant.⁣
Taller than your older friends,⁣
mountainous in your anger,⁣
a cathedral of words and laughter.⁣

You walk on tiptoe everywhere,⁣
Your dance more irritated bumblebee than prima ballerina.⁣

You have a favorite version of the Bible,⁣
But you don’t like to pray.⁣
Moses, Joseph, and Judas fascinate you;⁣
You like to play “resurrection.”⁣
You sit for half hours staring at pages you can’t read.⁣
I wonder what they’re saying to you.⁣

You see things I can’t see.⁣
You hear things I can’t hear.⁣
You know things I worked decades to know.⁣

There is nothing like your smile.⁣
There is nothing like your fury.⁣
There is nothing like your joy.⁣
There is nothing like your grief.⁣

There is nothing like you.⁣

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Happy birthday to my first and only. Three was wild; four is starting out weird. I don’t know what this year holds, my big and little girl, but God wanted you in this world badly enough to rearrange reality, and that means everything you are, everything you do, everything you become as you grow is a walking, talking, running, laughing, crying, hugging, snoring expression of Love. Whatever happens next, you are holy. Called by God. Set apart. And this year is going to be amazing.⁣

“She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.” [Prov 31:25]⁣

“I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” [3 John 1:4]