My six year old daughter loves to write little notes on pieces of paper and leave them for me. She writes cute little girly things like “I love you, daddy” and “hugs and kisses.” Usually when I go out of town, I can expect a note from her saying “I will miss you, daddy” or “I wish you didn’t have to go.” Since we live in an electronically savvy world, Lexi is starting to also get the hang of typing text documents which enhances her communication process. Here is the exact message she left for me in a word document yesterday, “Hi dad . how are you doing ? I love you so much. If you speack tonight do good.i will do 2 speaiel [translated - special] things for you.i love you kkkiiisssssss.” She is a very sweet and thoughtful girl and I hope she stays like that when she is a teenager!

While I was away last night on an event, my wife committed the cardinal sin- she taught our daughter how to text message. Having worked in youth ministry for many years, I know that this is a bad habit to start. I know students who send over 10,000 text messages a month! Anyway, I received a text message last night while I was on my way home from the event and it was from Lexi. When I got home she was all giggly and didn’t want to speak to me but only communicate through text messages. After some exchanging of texts, I sent her one that said “go to bed” (since she was up two hours past her bedtime). We usually tuck our kids into bed every night, but last night Lexi did not want me to tuck her in; instead, she declared to my wife “I don’t want daddy to tuck me in…tell him to text me in.” My daughter could not wait until she received each text message from me because she knew that the words represented her daddy who loves her.

I hope I love hearing from God as much as my daughter loves hearing from me.