Mary Kate's blessing from mom and dad...but mostly mom

Mary Kate, I read back through your baby book before I started writing this to you. The word that kept popping out at me as I read was “gentle”. You were a gentle infant, a gentle toddler, and you continue with a gentle elegance of spirit. Your eyes have always sparked with enthusiasm and when you smile it lights up your whole face. It always has. If you can just imagine me and your dad and we are young and you smiled for the first time at us…we were overwhelmed. You had both of us and your brothers in the palm of your hand but you were never arrogant about it, only gentle with us.

I also read about your first day of kindergarten. You told me that morning that you were not going to kindergarten…that you had just decided not to go. I ignored you and then you said I guess I will go to kindergarten. You always needed everything to be on your terms…we let you think that it was.

There are so many amazing memories of watching you grow up…preschool, Brownies, swim lessons, soccer, basketball, tennis team, elementary school musicals, Write-a-books, lacrosse, Camp WaMaVa…but mostly I have loved watching you with your friends…laughing, singing with the Cooper girls, matching outfits with Rachel, wearing your whole Brownie uniforms to school…beanie included.

Our move to Texas changed our lives. One of the best things about this move is that I have had more time with you these past two years. I know if we had stayed in Maryland you wouldn’t have had as much time to be with me. I am glad for that time.

I didn’t know what to expect with a daughter. I started with two sons. I was a little afraid that I wouldn’t know what to do with a girl. Now, I don’t know what I would do without my girls. You are my daughter but you are also my friend. There is much about us that is alike…our easy tears, our taste in music, our love for our friends, we both love your dad, our love of beautiful things, our need to be nonconformists…. but what I want to be the most alike about us…is I want you to walk alongside me in the kingdom…the realm of God. I know that you are on that journey and I want to walk it with you. I know that you will take your own paths in that quest but know that my heart is always with you and you can always turn back for a helping hand. I wish for friends for you on that journey…. friends who know Jesus deeply and will take you to the throne room of God. I wish for you a place to serve. I know that you have a heart for those who are disadvantaged or disenfranchised and I want you to hear God’s voice when he is calling you to serve where you are needed. I wish for you to see beauty…in the amazing creation around you, in the incredible faces of children, in the hurting and the wounded, and in the everydayness of life. I don’t wish for you a life of ease but a life that leads you to the path of light…the path of Jesus. It is hard for a mom to say that she doesn’t wish you ease but discovery, not luxury but contentment, not just laughter but pure joy. I want you to take hold of the abundant life.

And I want to end with some words from the first chapter of Colossians:
For this reason, since the day that we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you and asking God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all spiritual wisdom and understanding. And we pray this in order that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and may please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, and joyfully giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.