I know there is a deep question coming when her eyes get that far away look. It may be an expression, but you truly can just about see the wheels turning in her little mind. Then slowly...slowly...her head turns toward me and her thoughtful look focuses on me for a moment before she speaks, and then it comes:
"Mummy, I'm very worried, because I don't know how to get married. I know I'm growing into a lady and it is almost time for me to get married, but I don't know how. And I keep trying to remember when you and Daddy got married so I can know how to do it, but I can't remember. And I don't know who I will marry, either. I don't know when I will be old enough and I feel like I need to know all of those things. Do you think God can teach me?"
Then I wrap her up in my arms, and I ache inside at the knowledge that my baby girl is looking so very far ahead into the future and seeing that it is in fact very close, and dreaming in beautiful innocence of a day when she will no longer be my dimpled little pixie child, but the strong and lovely woman whom God is helping her already to become. And I assure her that He will teach her all those things and more when the time comes, but that right now He delights in her girlish laughter, and her sparkling eyes, and her silly bare feet, and her twirling dances. I tell her that she is His princess and she need never worry for her future, because she has the King for her father.
And she lifts her bright, trusting face to mine, and her little girl smile holds the beauty of womanhood all unknowing in it, and she runs off to play as a child once again. And I weep.
