Because I love you, I will watch you fail and allow it to happen when I have the power to help you succeed because failure builds character

Because I love you, I will callous my knees in prayer for your lives, your day, your hearts because I know God is faithful and prayer is a powerful weapon

Because I love you, I will nag you to clean your rooms, rinse your dishes, and pick up your stuff scattered around the house because you have to learn pride of ownership and responsibility for yourself

Because I love you, I will allow you to walk out the door knowing full well your day will be one of the hardest you have ever faced because I cannot intervene and fix your problems

Because I love you, I will pray God’s Word over your life every single day and beg Him to keep you safe and bring you home to me at the end of your day because I cannot let worry overtake me

Because I love you, I will watch you make mistakes and ask for forgiveness because you have to learn humility and own up to your decisions

Because I love you, I will lie in bed at night waiting for the door to open so I know you are home before I close my eyes to sleep because I need to know you are safe

Because I love you, I will require you to go to church and youth group because your faith in Christ needs to be challenged and strengthened

Because I love you, I will repeatedly bring up difficult subjects like dating someone who is not a Christian, going too far sexually, setting boundaries in relationships, compromising your beliefs to gain your friends’ approval and choosing to go to parties even if you say you will not participate because you have to learn to make good choices

Because I love you, I will make you do your own laundry, clean toilets, pick up dog poop, pull weeds and learn to iron because you need these skills to be independent some day

Because I love you, I will continually ask you what you did when you were out with your friends, out with your boyfriend/girlfriend, out with kids I do not know because accountability is a discipline you must practice now

Because I love you, I will stay up until 1 am fixing your outfit, go out in a snowstorm to buy you a poster board and retype your paper when I have a migraine because someday I will miss these tasks

Because I love you, I will make you learn how to cook because finding your way in the kitchen is a fundamental skill to moving out of our home

Because I love you, I will challenge you to dig into the Bible when you do not know what to do about peer pressure, gossip, unfairness and betrayal because God’s Word holds the answers to every problem life will throw at you and you must discover them yourself

Because I love you, I will make you sit on the couch or at the kitchen table and tell me about your day because I want you to learn to share your heart with others

Because I love you, I will sometimes give you grace when you deserve punishment because you need to understand God’s grace through Jesus’ death and resurrection on the cross

Because I love you, I will make you play games with me, be silly and watch me be ridiculous and goofy because you should never forget how much fun family can be

Because I love you, I will secretly close my door, sit on my bed and cry because watching you grow up hurts my heart, I miss the days when you were younger and I just want more time

Because I love you I will get upset and tell you when you disappoint me because you need to learn your decisions affect other people’s lives and you have the ability to break someone’s spirit with your words and actions

Because I love you, I will bake cookies for you and your friends when I am sick and would rather be doing something for me because it brings me joy

Because I love you, I will cancel plans with my friends to be home when you want to hang out in the basement with your friends because your happiness is more important to me than my own

Because I love you, I will work overtime and sacrifice my own wants and needs so you can have the school shirt and the expensive shoes you want because I know how important it is to you

Because I love you, I will embarrass you in front of your friends with my “I love you”s and hugs because you need to know you mean the world to me

Because I love you, I will exasperate you when I do things you can do yourself because I just want to feel needed

Because I love you, I will hurt your feelings with my honesty instead of telling you what you want to hear because you have to learn to accept and manage truth

Because I love you, I will not always give you answers when you want them instead pointing you to Christ because some day He is all you will have to turn to

Because I love you, I will believe what you tell me when you have earned my trust because you have not given me a reason to doubt you

Because I love you, I will let you grow up, figure out your own value system and attain more independence because I trust God will carry you on your journey to adulthood

Because I love you, I will celebrate your success, cry when you are hurting and worry over you because I am your biggest fan

Because I love you, I will let you grow up because I know I have done my very best to raise you and God will take care of you always