{FAITH OVER FEAR} From Diapers to Diplomas

I’m coming to the end of the race, and the finish line isn’t quite what I thought it would be. I’m definitely breathless, and I’m certainly weak in the knees, but I’m also full of a barrage of unexpected emotions.

I anticipated the excitement. I anticipated the melancholy. I anticipated the frustration. I even anticipated the fear.

Yet, I didn’t anticipate the regret. The regret for all the things I should have said and didn’t. For the time I wished I had lingered longer, but treated like it was endless. For the hope I exchanged over fears that never came to pass.

It all seems so superfluous, in light of the cap and gown backdrop; all the worry and stress I allowed drowning out the joy of everyday life.

Today, she walks the stage. Every time I read that line out loud it takes my breath away. Today she makes her mark. Today she begins a life of doing what she chooses to do and not what she has to do.

Today, I won’t allow a single regret to steal this joyful moment. What happened in the journey makes the closing of the chapter all the more beautiful.

As I’ve sifted through family photos over the past few weeks, they’ve reminded me how little we get to predict of our future, and how easily it is to forget the blessed moments of the past.

We’ve raised her well, not perfectly, but well. We’ve shared in the victories and in the defeats. She knows God loves her in spite of her flaws and failures. She knows we love her and that home is her safe place. She knows life is hard, but she also knows she can conquer hard.

Today, I will place a pen in her hand, and tell her to write her own story – and whisper in her ear that I believe she’ll write it well. I will encourage her to invite many to scribble on her blank chapters ahead. I will cheer her on to live boldly, fiercely, and UN-AFRAID of mistakes, and I will even try and persuade her to write in the margins. Today, I will tell her the thing I tried to always show her – I knew you could do it!

From diapers to diplomas is but a blink of an eye. The uncertainty of infancy, the exhaustion of the toddler years, the busyness of adolescence, and the stress of the tormented teens feel like a lost ship being tossed in an endless raging sea. Yet, today, I reflect back and none of it seems as bad as it was. It’s sort of like the pain in childbirth, we know it hurt, but we’d do it all over again!

Congratulations to our beautiful, Kaitlyn Brooke Kinder, you lived the ultimate faith over fear story and JUST DID IT AFRAID!

You are everything we’d believed you to be and so much more amazing than we had ever anticipated!