Today, Slugger and I spent the morning together. Keao had to work for a few hours, so it was just me and her at home. Most of the time, Slugger is pretty content to just kind of cruise around and play with her toys as long as she knows you’re nearby. Every now and then, she will come over and want to be carried or want to sit in your lap, but for the most part she knows how to entertain herself.

Last week, Debbie, another staff member at church, gave me a book called Heaven is For Real. It’s the story of a little boy who briefly went to Heaven and returned back. It’s a fairly short book and it’s an easy read, so this morning, while I was watching Slugger I read the book.

In the book, the little boy, named Colton, describes going to Heaven and meeting Jesus. He also mentions over and over again that Jesus really loves children. He really, really loves children. Colton also goes on to tell his parents that he met his sister in Heaven. The strange thing is that before Colton was born, his mom had a miscarriage and they never told Colton about that. He met his sister that he didn’t even know he had!

In case you didn’t know, today is a special day. Five years ago, July 28 was just another day on my calendar, no more special than any other day. Four years ago on this date I got married. July 28 now had a very special meaning because it was one of the happiest days of my life. One year ago on this date I became a father. I became a dad to three teeny, tiny girls: Astro, Gizmo and Slugger. July 28 now had even more significance.

But July 28 also carries sadness as well as elation and joy. Although we brought three girls into this world, we lost Astro too. What should have been our happiest moment also became one of unimaginable grief as well. As if anything else couldn’t go wrong, a little over two weeks later, we would go on to lose Gizmo too.

If Heaven is for real, and I believe it is, then that means that this story will end happily! One day, whenever that day is, I will be reunited with all of my girls and we will never be separated again. In his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul writes that, “I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God’s love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow—not even the powers of hell can separate us from God’s love” (Romans 8:38). Along with that I believe that once we hit Heaven we’ll be together forever (along with all of our other loved ones that know Jesus). What a joyous homecoming that will be. I can’t wait for my girls to show me around and give me the grand tour. There I’ll be able to hug and kiss them as long as I want to.

But today we also celebrate too. While we remember our lost girls, we celebrate with the one that turned a year old! Today Slugger turned one and she isn’t showing any signs of being born three months early. In fact, if you didn’t know anything about her you would never believe what she went through. You would never believe she spent the first 81 days of her life in the hospital fighting for her life. You would never believe she was only 2 pounds, 4 ounces when she was born. You would never believe that she was hooked up to so many machines that helped her breathe, eat and survive. All these things you would never believe because today she looks so perfect. We rejoice at how our little Slugger has turned out and we look forward to seeing her grow for many more years.

Thank you Jesus for blessing us with three beautiful little girls. I can’t wait until we can all be together again! Daddy loves you guys!

Happy Birthday Slugger!