Sweet Girl,
Tomorrow, you start 2nd grade and honestly, I am crazy excited for you. Every year seems to be better than the last one. You continue to amaze me with your quiet, calm, steady spirit at school. Your teachers often say they would love to have a whole class of students just like you.
I know you are a bit worried though. You’ve been the very first-star student two years in a row, you’ve never once changed your color on the behavior chart, and you earn tickets for going above and beyond most every day.
Several times this summer, you’ve reminded us that you might not be the first-star student this year and you might move your color and you might not earn a ticket every day and, you say, that would be okay.
But I’m pretty sure the person you are trying to convince of that is you because, Pumpkin, Daddy and I have always been completely okay with you being okay.
And we want you to know why it is absolutely okay to be okay.
Scripture is filled with okay girls.
Servants, unexpected queens, homemakers, tent-stake-general-slayers, mothers, judges, business owners, wives, chronically ill survivors, prophetesses, widows, midwives, deacons, cousins, landowners, poor, wealthy, sisters, sinners, healed, beautiful, beloved.
Ordinary, okay girls the Lord used in extraordinary, exceptional ways right in the middle of their very regular life.
Maybe some of them were star students. Maybe some were always obedient and quiet. But most of them were a mix of mistakes and ministry. Most of them were living ordinary, okay lives when God used them.
Knowing those women, reading their stories, walking through their lives in scripture, what a blessing to us because then we can see it is absolutely okay to be okay.
I know we celebrate star students and best readers and chess champions. When you get older, that looks a lot like being the person with lots of money or the biggest company or the most degrees. We love to celebrate the big things people do.
But you know what Jesus says? He says in the kingdom of God, the last will be first. That means the people who never win a prize, never have a fancy job, never live in a big house, and they love Jesus, they will get the most hugs from Him in heaven.
And if you love Jesus, you don’t have to worry about your star student record. God never asks us to be perfect or even to try to be perfect. He took care of that already. Our Father sent us His Son Jesus who was perfect so we never, ever fail at perfection again.
Sweet Girl, Jesus already won Star Student every year, already kept the perfect green color behavior chart streak, already earned the most tickets to spend in the school store. He already finished that work for you and that, well, that’s just the best news.
You get to be absolutely okay You instead of trying to be the perfect Jesus already is for you.
Baby, you could never be the star student again, move your color more days than not, miss out on being recognized for your helpfulness and obedience, and it would not matter to Daddy and me one single bit.
You keep being the ordinary girl who worked hard to learn how to read even when the other kids in your reading group made fun of you for being slow. Keep being okay with swinging high during recess because you crave the downtime. Continue to be the friend who sees others struggling with their ordinary emotions and encourages with, “it’s okay, everyone handles things differently.”
You are wonderfully, beautifully, fabulously You and we want for you to just be You. There is truly not another You in this entire world and God saw fit to send You, just as you are, to this world.
Jesus doesn’t need you to be the star student either. He seems partial to ordinary, okay girls. All He wanted from them and wants from you now is your love.
Loving Jesus means your okay, ordinary transforms into His exceptional, extraordinary.
It is absolutely okay to be okay in our home, in your school, in your neighborhood, and in our church. Because with Jesus, you are already exceptional and extraordinary.
We love you,
Momma and Daddy
