As we have done each year on her birthday, Jubilee and I spent a day together telling stories, eating at la Madeleine, taking pictures, and simply having a grand time. Jubilee can be a rootin’-tootin’ cowgirl or a girlie girl, depending on the mood. For the last two years, she has decided that the latter was the spirit du jour for her birthday. Appropriately, she donned her vintage Titanic outfit and showed up on the morning of her birthday at my bedroom door to announce that she was ready for her day with Daddy.

Some things are just too beautiful for words. One of them is a little girl that longs to be in the presence of her father.

“Daddy, can we go out for our tea time now?”

Wait a minute. Wasn’t it just yesterday that we celebrated her last birthday and she wore the same dress, and said the very same words to me? The dress fits her differently this year, and the raspy childish voice I knew so well has been replaced by the voice of a young lady. When did that happen?

Is she really six years old? She is so beautiful.

Right about now, I feel that deep, deep sinking feeling of wonder, awe, and helplessness. Yes, real helplessness. I desperately want to hold onto something that is beyond my grasp — something that I am not meant to hold forever.

Oh Lord, just one more decade to hold that tiny hand. Please Father, just a little more time to live with and love the little girl whose dolly is never far from her arms and who longs to be in her father’s arms. Just a few more decades of birthdays, bathed in the unfathomable devotion and unfeigned innocence of the little girl before me.

I know it is the sacred duty of every father to bring his daughter into noble, womanly maturity and wedlock. Each season is precious. I know this. I have preached it. But at this moment, this emotional moment, I simply want her to remain the little girl with the pink Titanic dress, the bowed hat, and the dolly in her arms forever.

Is that so much to ask?

I know the answer of course, but it does not seem to bring resolution to the heart of a father that aches for his precious one. But there is one thought that quickly brings me back to reality:

My time with my children is a gift from God. He owns my time and he owns my children. As much as I love them, He loves them and me more. The very fact that I have the capacity to love my daughter is evidence that I am made in the image of God. Compared to God’s love, my love is nothing.

How the Father must love His own children. Such unfathomable, unsurpassed love.

Yes, it is hard watching our sweethearts grow up. But it is also beautiful. And this pain in my heart, this fatherly ache, drives home the fact that I must number my days and drink deeply from every opportunity to live and to love the little girl in the pink dress while God yet gives me opportunity.

Jubilee Grows Up

Jubilee on the Faith and Freedom Tour (Age 1)

Jubilee on her fifth birthday, en route to la Madeleine

Jubilee picks out a birthday treat — strawberries romanoff

Jubilee learns the violin

Jubilee on her sixth birthday party with Daddy