A Jon Post

We’re having a little girl.
I get to be a daddy to a little girl.

Anaya Hosanna Heller will be here some time near the middle of February.

Over the next 20+ years I’ll learn what it means to raise a princess.
I’ll try to show her how a husband loves his wife. I’ll teach her how to drive stick shift. I’ll try to demonstrate humility. I’ll show her how to swim. I’ll teach her to clothe herself in strength and dignity and laugh at the days to come (Proverbs 31:25). I’ll teach her how to ride a bike. I’ll show her how to open her arms to the needy and extend her hands to the poor (Proverbs 31:20). I’ll teach her to climb cliffs and find hand and footholds where ascent over the crux seems impossible. I’ll hold her hand and dry her tears and pray away fevers and kiss away fear and drive out rebellion and usher in truth and shoo away ghosts and beasts that come in the night and I’ll love and care and hug.

My little girl.

Anaya (Look up to God) Hosanna (and SHOUT with praise)…

You’ll bring forth poetry, and song, and dance.

You’re little hands, wrought by tender scarred ones, will show love and comfort and gentleness.

You’re little feet, dancing in the footsteps of those of us who go before you, and standing on the shoulders of those of us who stand beneath you.

Look my little one… Look little Anaya.
Look at your mother and her compassion for the lost. Look at her loving submission to her husband and her firm wisdom and her ready smile. Look at her patience and her grace. See how she clothes herself in her gentle, quiet spirit (1 Peter 3:4), how she prays and fasts and buries heart in the depths of her Lord.

And look at your savior.
Little Anaya, look to the cross. Look to the one whose blood stained the ground and in whose grace and mercy we are purchased. Look to the cross my dear Anaya.

Oh, Lord Christ, save my daughter. In your mercy and compassion look past the sin that she is born into, that I pass on to her in my fallen flesh. Chose her for eternity, Jesus, and breathe life into a dead spirit. Save my daughter. Save her please. Have mercy on her. Don’t let her go into the night, don’t leave her in sin’s darkness, don’t let her pass into that shadow. Call her out into your marvelous light. Save my daughter, Lord Jesus. Oh… save my daughter, Lord Jesus.

I get to be a daddy to a little girl.