Daughters

father's be good to your daughters
daughters will live like you do
girls become lovers
who turn into mothers
so mothers be good
to your daughters to


Last night, Kara and decided to spend our Friday night at the health club, getting’ a little work out in. Last night, at the health club, was also the annual “Daddy-Daughter” Valentine’s Dance.

There were a few hundred Dad’s and Daughter’s covering two small basketball courts. It was a sight to behold. Dad’s dressed up in their best suits, on the dance floor with their young daughter(s). Daughters who'd wouldn't want to be anywhere else than right where they were. Hair all done up. Corsage on the wrist. The color pink abounding. Little girls believing they were Cinderella, or Snow White; some kind of princess to be sure.

So much of my time working with college students is undoing or bringing healing to the wounds caused in the lives of young people by their parents. Wounds that are the result of Christian homes as much as non-Christian homes. In fact, sometimes the aftermath of growing up Christian (especially the fundamentalist stripe) is worse for there is no more dangerous combination than legalism, hypocrisy, guilt, and shame, mixed with religion.

If we are going to change the world, one good friend likes to say . . . we’d better first start by loving the family given to us by God.