Saturday, October 17, 1998

'Daddy' is still the best word in English language

By DAVID WATERS

Scripps Howard News Service

My little angel is 16.

Sixteen is the age I've been dreading since my daughter Megan was born.

Sixteen is the age of dating, driving and doubt.

I know what you're thinking. Megan is too old to have a father so young. It's OK. I knew fatherhood would be so wonderful, I was eager to get started.

I was right.

'Daddy' still is the best word in the English language. It was the first word Megan learned to say. She still knows how to deploy it.

"Daddy, can you spare $20?" Or "Daddy, can I borrow the car?" Or "Daddy, have you met so-and-so?"

I'm sure so-and-so has a name, but at this point I refuse to recognize it.

Megan's dating and driving I can handle with denial. It's the third 'd' of her age that makes me anxious.

My little angel doesn't want to go to church anymore. She has doubts about God.

I knew it would happen. Same thing happened to me when I was her age. I stopped going to church for a lot of reasons. I was bored in church. I wanted to sleep in. I wanted to watch football. I didn't want to do what my parents wanted me to do.

There was a better reason.

I was a teenage agnostic.

I didn't know what or who to believe, or whether to believe at all.

I did know this: There was no way to prove any of it.

My doubts about God made me feel like a hypocrite in church. So I decided to stop going to church until I knew for sure what to believe, and who to believe.

Here I am 24 years later, and I still don't know anything for sure.

But I do believe.

Megan, you are the primary reason.

Your mother and I were married in a church, but we didn't attend church. Every now and then, we'd go to a service somewhere. We'd never go back. Even when we were greeted warmly, each place seemed cold and distant.

Turns out, we were looking for God in all the wrong places.

I may have found out about God in church, but that's not where I found God. And finding God is what sent me back to church.

So where did I find God?

I found God in a delivery room 16 years ago at the Jackson-Madison County General Hospital.

You were delivered via C-section. I saw your left foot first. I quickly counted five toes. Then I saw the rest of you. That's when I started counting my blessings.

I'll never forget the moment you were born, because it was the first time I saw God.

Megan, when I was your age, I wanted proof that God existed. I wanted faith to be a fact I could look up in the encyclopedia.

But God isn't something you "know" like the capital of Rhode Island. Facts rarely add up to the truth.

Science can explain how you were born.

It can't explain how I felt when you were born.

It can't explain what an amazing person you have become.

It can't explain what a miracle you are in my life.

Why do I go to church? Because I believe in God.

Why do I believe? I have you for a daughter. That's the only explanation. You're all the proof I need.

(To reach reporter David Waters, e-mail him at waters(at)gomemphis.com.)