Father to Daughter

Okay – one more post about Dad angst before I go back to broader topics…

One week from tomorrow, God willing, we will welcome a fourth girl – Ella Rae – into our family. I was thinking tonight about the years we ached for just one child and the task we have now undertaken – raising 4 girls. It’s more than I ever hoped for, but now I’m praying (as I think all parents must) that it’s not more than I can handle…

As I think tonight about the mysteries of fathers and daughters, I randomly remembered this music video from our old pal Lindsay Lohan, back when she was a young starlet with a bright future. I don’t know how much of this is embellished and how much is autobiography, but I do remember how I felt when I saw it for the first time: physically ill. And maybe a little angry. And I am thinking now about the tragic turns her life has taken, and thinking that maybe we should have seen it coming back then.

I dream of another you, one who would never.
Never, leave me alone to pick up the pieces.
A Daddy to hold me, that’s what I needed.

Haunting. Especially for us father-types. When I see LiLo in a news story, I don’t see a hedonistic Hollywood celeb or a cautionary tale or a target of ridicule. I see the scared, angry, hurting little girl in this video. And I think two things:

One: Lindsay, you do have a Father dying to hold you, whole will never leave you alone, who will pick up the pieces. And He’s close. And it’s never too late.

Two: Dear God – make me like You so I don’t mess up my girls.

It’s not that I’m worried I will wake one day and realize I have suddenly become a violent alcoholic. Through the Spirit I’ve spent a lot of years of my life nailing a lot of natural inclinations (like bad temper and addictive personality) on a lot of big gnarly crosses. I’m also not thinking I will ever be perfect. I know I have a lot to learn, and that I’ll probably figure most of it out just in time to walk them down the aisle and hand them off to some other dude.

What I am concerned with is the thousand tiny steps from here to there – the millions of moments that make up the relationship between daddy and daughters. I want to get those right more than I get them wrong. I am a little worried I might wake up one day and realize I have suddenly become that distant, irrelevant, cold persona so many young girls see their father as. And I am hoping my concern is good proof that I’m on the right track.

So for what it’s worth, here’s what I think I know is important so far. I will be completely and uncomfortably transparent and tell you these are my prayers at the moment:

1. Four girls, a wife, and a neutered cat will live at my house. As the only dude in residence, I want to be a man, in every sense of the word, so my girls will know what that looks like. And so their future boyfriends fear for their safety. I pray I can learn from Jesus’ example how to be aggressive when it”s needed and lamb-like when it’s not, and what true masculinity is all about, beyond anatomy, meat-eating, and love of engine repair.
2. The prophet said of Jesus “a bruised reed he will not break.” As His disciple, I pray for a gentleness and discernment that will help me not crush the sensitive spirits of little girls with harsh words, impatience, or even good-natured teasing. I pray for the Holy Spirit to physically beat me senseless when I’m being a jerk to my wife or my girls. Maybe a tree could fall on my head from time time. That would do it.
3. I pray for eyes to see the unique gifts and greatnesses of each of my girls. They are all so different – the nature and nurture debate is settled for me – their personalities are hard-wired! And they all need to know they are just as God intended, that different is great, and they are fearfully and wonderfully made. Some people call that good self-esteem, I think of it more as healthy self-image – seeing who I am in through the eyes of the One who made me. I pray for the right words to encourage and build up and “fan into flame.”
4. I pray for the ability to provide security and stability for my family, so they can grow up without fear. I am also praying that God will help me rely on Him for security, stability, and provision, not just try to do it all myself. I’m still learning to trust. And I pray I win the lottery, even though I don’t play it. Or that at least one of them can get a football scholarship.
5. I pray Jesus will help me learn how to be a better husband. Fourteen years have come and gone, and I still don’t know what I’m doing. But my girls need to grow up with a real, live, functional “in-love” married couple living in their house so they know that it’s possible. It’s something I didn’t have modeled for me, and I am always needing the Spirit’s help to figure out how to make it better.
6. I pray God will keep me from sin and stupidity and boredom and idle hands. It would just be the absolute worst for my girls to have a hard time trusting or believing in God because I preached the Gospel then had a massive moral failure.
7. I pray my greatest achievements in discipleship would be leading Janae, Corinne, Maya, and Ella to become followers of Jesus – that they would not only be my daughters in the flesh, but my daughters in the Faith.
8. I pray I live a good long healthy  time so I can take my kids’ kids to Disneyland. And since faith without works is dead, I also pray for the discipline to get my sorry carcass back on the treadmill and to “just say no” to leftover Easter candy before I start losing appendages to retinopathy.
9. I pray all of my faults, weaknesses, and shortcomings would nullified by the grace, love, acceptance, and forgiveness of Jesus, shared freely in our home. I want our house to be a place of healing and hope. And I want my girls to rest knowing their father on Earth loves them, but their Father in Heaven loves them perfectly.

Maybe some of you older dads of daughters out there can give me a number ten – nine just seems incomplete. Or maybe you can just start a 12-step group for us. I’ll bring the brews.