Dolly

This is my Allison. She is 14 today.

This is a hard age. We - she as well as her mom and dad - are navigating it as best we can. She is caught somewhere between childhood and young womanhood. Old enough to be "developing"; young enough to still want to hold my hand when we walk. She is, I know, more naive than many of the other kids her age. For good or for ill, we've sheltered our kids, and especially our daughter. We've tried to protect them from growing up too fast. She is still so innocent in many ways.

Sometimes I am struck by the contrast in her behaviour - one minute she is skipping unselfconsciously as we walk from the car to the mall, and the next minute she is dragging me into Old Navy and trying to sweet-talk me into buying her a spaghetti strap tank. (NO.)

She has a quick wit and sometimes in good fun she will zing me, just come back with something snappy and intelligent and grown-up; yet on the other hand, she doesn't know the meaning of many of the "grown-up" words that other kids her age use so easily (vulgar slang expressions, for example). She didn't know what "gay" meant until about a year ago, and she's still perplexed by the whole concept.

When she was little I had two nicknames for her: "Lamby" and "Dolly". I still call her Lamby, but I don't call her Dolly much any more. I think of it as her baby-nickname. But her uncle, my brother Steve, still calls her Dolly and when I hear him call her that it just pierces my heart. Where did my Dolly go? How did she grow up so fast? Each year seems to slip away a little faster and I wish she would stay little for just a bit longer. Be my Dolly again.

That's not the way it works. All I can do is try my best to guide this child-woman, who is more precious to me than she knows, towards adulthood. I am thankful that she is in the Lord's hand. I pray for her - for all my kids - to remain in Christ; that they would grow into faithful servants; that they would meet and marry Christian spouses one day; that they will raise their own children in the Lord. And I thank God for them all, today especially for my Alli.