Tomorrow is my daughter's 14th birthday.
It's hard to believe 14 years have come and gone since that night in May 1998 when she arrived. She was so tiny. She weighed 6lbs 13 oz. I was 34 years old and as unsure of my ability to take care of her as I could possibly be. But what confidence I lacked in my earnings potential, I made up for in my fatherhood skills. Somehow I knew I was going to be a great daddy. I always wanted to be a dad from as long as I could remember. And at exactly 10 O'Clock PM on the first Thursday of May 1998...I became one.
She had thick black hair and her mothers blue eyes. The hair turned blonde but the eyes remained as blue as the sea.
For the first three hours I did little else except tell her I loved her over and over...the words reverberating in my own soul. I had never heard my father speak those words to me and somehow hearing my own voice speaking them to my child was soothing in a way I had not expected.
Being her father has been the greatest blessing and privilege of my life. These past five years have been hard but she has been a trooper and she has been my inspiration. It was always for love of her that I endured the humiliation of homelessness and kept trying over and over to rebuild my life. It was for her that I pushed myself toward the goal of graduating from college at 48. because I want her to see her daddy as an overcomer, not as someone whom the world overcame. She has seen me get knocked down time and again...but she has always seen me get back up. Someday when college is a grind and she feels like quitting, she'll remember my trials as I completed my degree and she'll get back in the fight.
This is the year I am going to pronounce my fatherly blessing on her, as Ed Tandy McGlasson speaks of in his conferences and his book. It is time. She has become a wonderful, godly young woman. She is not a little girl anymore and it is my job as her dad to pronounce my blessing on who and what she has become, and to promise her that I will do everything I possibly can to see her dreams come true.
I will give up my own dreams, if necessary, to see hers fulfilled.
She is my arrow...my quiver is full. Each day I pray a protective blessing over her and I ask God for the wisdom to know her target, prepare her for it...and to one day be ready to set her to flight.
I'm not ready for that yet. I have a few more years and I am determined to fill them with all the memories, love, and encouragement I possibly can. Before I can blink, the target will be revealed and it will be time for me to draw my bow and set my arrow to flight in this world.
Morgan...I could not--were the world my scroll and the ocean my inkwell--ever fully express how much I love you, and how happy just being your dad makes me. But I will live my days trying to explain it. Your dreams are my dreams. I will do all I can to see you become who you were put on this planet to become. You have my promise on this.
Happy Birthday Morgan Wray. Each year I wish this to you but each year it is you who are the gift to me.
Live each day knowing that your daddy loves you more than anything in this world.
Daddy
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