Dear Cor,

Happy Birthday! We've been waiting and waiting and waiting for this day to come -- and finally it's here! Hurray! Now you're a "big kid." You get to play a "big guitar." You get to go to "big school" and drink juice from "big kid juice-boxes." You stand so big and tall, with such "big muscles." So we're putting away your stroller and your security blanket, and all that sort of "little kid stuff" -- and we are celebrating the fact that you are now a fearless, fabulous four-year-old!

I'm so proud of the ways that you're growing up. You're just a delightful person, Cor. I love how you bring laughter and music, wherever you go. Whether it's making silly faces at the breakfast table... or leading worship with a ukelele and a wooden microphone, standing on the brown armchair in our dining room... or bubbling up with deep belly-laughs from an episode of "Buurman Buurman"... or air-drumming in the back seat of the car... you're simply full of laughter and music.

But of course there's a lot more to you than that. You can also be sweet and serious: crawling into bed with your mother in the morning to talk and sing... or carefully mimicking the way that I open a cereal box, the way that Elliot passes a basketball... or snuggling up on my lap, all warm and woozy after waking from an afternoon nap... or performing death-defying feats on the monkey-bars, just to show you can hang with the big kids. I really admire this toughness, cut with tenderness. Even back when you were a "little kid" (like, last week), you proved yourself to be tough, keeping up with two talented, older siblings. You run and jump and tackle and play with reckless abandon -- and it makes me proud, to see the way that you can combine all the different parts of your personality.

You really are getting to be a "big kid." I'm glad that you're excited about that. I'm excited about it, too.

Still, I'm guessing that you might still have relapses. That is, you might want to go back to being a three-year-old again sometimes. I can understand that, and even appreciate that; we parents can be reluctant for our little kids to grow up, too (especially when it comes to the littlest ones in our family). We all wish for "the old days" sometimes. So don't worry if you sometimes want to be a "little kid" again. Strollers and sucking on security blankets have their appeal, but it's good to remember that growing up is a good thing. The changes are the way things are meant to be, even if it doesn't always feel like it.

In the Bible it says, "When completeness comes, what is in part disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face." This means that the good things that we experience through different phases of life are, indeed, good things. Like riding in a stroller or sucking on a blanket. The good things remind us that God is good, and they give us glimpses of God's glory. But that doesn't mean that these good things are the complete picture of what God has for us. Often, we have to leave some good things behind, in order to embrace even better things ahead. It doesn't just happen when you go from being three to being four. This happens even later in life, too, like when you change from being 33 to 34, or from 73 to 74. This transition from the good, to the painful, to the better will keep happening, over and over, for the rest of our lives -- until we see Jesus face-to-face. And that, my son, will be a truly glorious day, like an endless, unlimited birthday party. As it says in the Bible, "Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known."

"And now," as we're growing up, "these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." So this is what I'm praying for you, Cor, in the coming year of your life. I'm praying that you will discover faith: simple, pure, childlike faith that will bring you into a life-long walk with Jesus. I'm praying that you will be able to maintain the attitude of hope which you hold today: hope in "getting big," growing up, and advancing to the next thing, all the way until the day of Christ. And I pray that you may always experience and exemplify love.

I really love you a lot, Cor. I love you a million, billion, ka-jillion. I think you're really something special. So please remember that, and remember that I wish you a very Happy Birthday.

With All the Love that My Heart can Hold,

Daddy