Today’s devotional is an excerpt from author Max Lucado, “A Good Dad Treasures His Children” taken from Six Hours One Friday ©1989 by Max Lucado. You can read more here: https://maxlucado.com/what-makes-a-good
Fathers, do not make your children angry; but raise them with the training and teaching of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)
Fathers, do not make your children angry; but raise them with the training and teaching of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:4)
“Jenna, wake up, it’s time to go to school.”
She will hear those words a thousand times in her life. But she heard them for the first time this morning.
I sat on the edge of her bed for awhile before I said them to her. To tell the truth, I didn’t want to say them. I didn’t want to wake her. A queer hesitancy hung over me as I sat in the early morning blackness. As I sat in the silence, I realized that my words would awaken her to a new world.
For four lightening-fast years she’d been ours, and ours alone. And now that was all going to change.
We put her to bed last night as “our girl” —exclusive property of Mommy and Daddy. Mommy and Daddy read to her, taught her, listened to her. But beginning today someone else would, too.
Until today, it was Mommy and Daddy who wiped away the tears and put on the Band-Aids. But beginning today, someone else would, too.
I didn’t want to wake her.
Until today, her life was essentially us—Mom, Dad, and baby sister Andrea. Today that life would grow— new friends, a teacher. Her world was this house—her room, her toys, her swing set. Today her world would expand. She would enter the winding halls of education—painting, reading, calculating… becoming.
I didn’t want to wake her. Not because of the school. It’s a fine one. Not because I don’t want her to learn. Heaven knows I want her to grow, to read, to mature. Not because she doesn’t want to go. School has been all she can talk about for the last week!
No, I didn’t want to wake her up because I didn’t want to give her up.
But I woke her anyway. I interrupted her childhood with the inevitable proclamation, “Jenna, wake up … it’s time to go to school.”
It took me forever to get dressed. Denalyn saw me moping around and heard me humming “Sunrise, Sunset” and said, “You’ll never make it through her wedding.” She’s right.
We took her to school in two cars so that I could go directly to work. I asked Jenna to ride with me. I thought I should give her a bit of fatherly assurance. As it turned out, I was the one needing assurance.
For one dedicated to the craft of words, I found very few to share with her. I told her to enjoy herself. I told her to obey her teacher. I told her, “If you get lonely or afraid, tell your teacher to call me and I’ll come and get you.” “Okay,” she smiled. Then she asked if she could listen to a tape with kids’ music. “Okay,” I said.
So while she sang songs, I swallowed lumps. I watched her as she sang. She looked big. Her little neck stretched as high as it could to look over the dash. Her eyes were hungry and bright. Her hands were folded in her lap. Her feet, wearing brand new turquoise and pink tennis shoes, barely extended over the seat.
Is this the little girl I carried?
Is this the little boy at play?
I don’t remember growing older.
When did they?
When did she get to be a beauty?
When did he grow to be so tall?
Wasn’t it yesterday when they were small?
Sunrise, sunset; sunrise, sunset;
Swiftly fly the days.¹
“Denalyn was right,” I mumbled to myself, “I’ll never make it through the wedding.”
What is she thinking? I wondered. Does she know how tall this ladder of education is she will begin climbing this morning?
No, she didn’t. But I did. How many chalkboards will those eyes see? How many books will those hands hold? How many teachers will those feet follow and—gulp—imitate?
Were it within my power, I would have, at that very instant, assembled all the hundreds of teachers, instructors, coaches, and tutors that she would have over the next eighteen years and announced, “This is no normal student. This is my child. Be careful with her!”
As I parked and turned off the engine, my big girl became small again. But it was a voice of a very little girl that broke the silence. “Daddy, I don’t want to get out.”
I looked at her. The eyes that had been bright were now fearful. The lips that had been singing were now trembling.
I fought a Herculean urge to grant her request. Everything within me wanted to say, “Okay let’s forget it all and get out of here.” For a brief, eternal moment I considered kidnapping my own daughters, grabbing my wife, and escaping these horrid paws of progress to live forever in the Himalayas.
But I knew better. I knew it was time. I knew it was right. And I knew she would be fine. But I never knew it would be so hard to say, “Honey, you’ll be all right. Come on, I’ll carry you.”
And she was all right. One step into the classroom and the cat of curiosity pounced on her. And I walked away. I gave her up. Not much. And not as much as I will have to in the future. But I gave her up as much as I could today.
As I was walking back to my truck, a verse pounced on me. It was a passage I’d studied before. Today’s events took it from black-and-white theology to technicolor reality.
“What, then, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him graciously give us all things?”²
Is that how you felt, God? Is what I felt this morning anything like what you felt when you gave up your son?
If so, it explains so much. It explains the proclamation of the angels to the shepherds outside Bethlehem. (A proud father was announcing the birth of a son.)
It explains the voice at Jesus’ baptism; “This is my son….” (You did what I wanted to do, but couldn’t.)
It explains the transfiguration of Moses and Elijah on the mountaintop. (You sent them to encourage him.)
And it explains how your heart must have ached as you heard the cracking voice of your son, “Father, take this cup away.”
I was releasing Jenna into a safe environment with a compassionate teacher who stood ready to wipe away any tears. You released Jesus into a hostile arena with a cruel soldier who turned the back of your son into raw meat.
I said good-bye to Jenna knowing she would make friends, laugh, and draw pictures. You said good-bye to Jesus knowing he would be spat upon, laughed at, and killed.
I gave up my child fully aware that were she to need me I would be at her side in a heartbeat. You said goodbye to your son fully aware that when he would need you the most, when his cry of despair would roar through the heavens, you would sit in silence. The angels, though positioned, would hear no command from you. Your son, though in anguish, would feel no comfort from your hands.
“He gave his best,” Paul reasons, “why should we doubt his love?”
Before the day was over, I sat in silence a second time. This time, not beside my daughter, but before my Father. This time not sad over what I had to give, but grateful for what I’d already received—living proof that God does care.
1 “Sunrise, Sunset” (Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick). 1964, Alley Music Corp. and Trio Music Co., Inc. All rights reserved. Used by permission.
2 Romans 8:31, 32 (emphasis, mine)