Beautiful Girl,

Everyday as I drop my son off to school, I watch you. I see you sit on the curb, taking a long drag of the cheap cigarette. I wonder why in an age where we know so much about the dangers of smoking, that you have picked up this habit.

I see how this habit demands your attention before you can go to class and just be a regular student. I watch you play on your phone, with the cigarette dangling loosely from one hand as you scroll through photos, texts, social media, ___________. I think about your attendance record, wondering if the teacher that marks you late every single day has tried to get to the bottom of your habitual tardiness.

As much as you would like everyone to think that you don’t care, part of me can’t help but wonder if you’re dying inside to know that just one person does care. You’re pretty sure your mom doesn’t, as she drops you off and pulls away from the curb before you’re anywhere near the entrance gate. She doesn’t see you wait a minute, and then walk the other way to spend a few minutes with the nicotine that steals a little more of your precious life. She doesn’t know that you’re safely off to your first class before she’s on her way.

And as you sit on that curb, trying to look tough in your Metallica tee shirt and torn jeans, I watch you try to appear oblivious to other students walking around you on the sidewalk. No one says hi. You don’t look up.

I watch you from a distance and say nothing while my eyes leak a little. I want to tell you that I know how it feels to wonder if anyone in the whole world even cares, or notices that you’re alive. I want to tell you that I know you’re trying to be tough and aloof, but deep down you’re dying inside. I want to tell you all of that because once upon a time, I was you.

More than anything, I want to tell you that there is Someone who does care. There is Someone who fashioned you with an everlasting love before your mom even got the news that she was carrying you. There is Someone who has His eyes on you every day and cares deeply when it seems like the rest of the world doesn’t. He’d give the whole world up to have you, which is why He went to the cross for you.

Until God opens that door of opportunity, I will continue to watch from a distance. And pray for you, beautiful girl. Because you are precious in His sight.