An Open Letter to My Grandaughter On Her First Birthday

Well, Sammi is one year old today. Maybe some day she'll read this and understand and appreciate why she's so special.

Sammi,

It's been a year since I held you at the hospital and had that strange feeling that things would never be the same for our family again. It was the exact same feeling I had when they handed your mother over to me in the delivery room when she was born.

I have to admit, it took be completely by surprise. I knew you would be cute and I knew you would be special but I never anticipated how quickly and completely you would capture my heart.

It didn't stop there....every time I saw you, you got more beautiful and seemed more full of joy. My hearts stops when you look at me and smile that huge, unbridled smile of recognition. It takes so little to please you and the reward for doing so is so great, it makes being near you an unexpected pleasure.

I've spent a lot of time trying to figure all this out; why you've had such a great impact on me and why it's so important to see you. As near as I can figure, it has something to do with how much I love your Mom and how much I was in awe and wonder of who she was when she was your age.

It seems such an incredibly short time ago.

Her fingers and toes were just as delicate and just as beautiful as yours. Her smile was just as big and just as freely given. Her squeals of delight and joy were just as contagious and she was just as devastatingly beautiful as you are.

One of my prayers for you, Sammi, is that one day you will know the peculiar pleasure and pain of being a parent. The pleasure of seeing your beautiful baby in awe of a beautiful and wondrous world. The joy of holding your baby in your arms until they are too big to hold anymore. The delight in seeing your baby crawl, then toddle, and then the melancholy pain and pleasure of watching as your baby walks down their own path in life. Then you'll know that parents often wonder if they did everything right. You'll see they have a strong tendency to second guess themselves and revisit times and circumstances that are best left behind as they embrace and savor what God has placed on their plates in the present.

Then one day, I pray that, just a miraculously.... just as magically, you have the opportunity to experience the beauty and blessing of your own grandchild. I pray that you'll see that little person as an extension of a work that God began in your heart so long ago....and a promise of continued and eternal blessing. If that happens, you'll have to look no further to know the greatness of God's love and the fullness of His joy.

I pray that you see that the beauty your grand child possesses has been passed down from your Grand Mother to your Mother, to you, then to your baby and then to her baby . I pray that you see that that beauty comes at least as much from within as it does from without and it all comes from the Lord.

I pray that you know your Lord a least as well as your parents and grand parents do. I pray that you grow up strong in His Word, committed to His will and blessed in His grace and mercy.

God be with you, Sammi. You are the living, breathing, laughing, cooing evidence that He is with us.

Love,
Grandpa K