Sometimes the words and thoughts for this newsletter are just not there. It seems as though I finish one issue and, before you know it, it's time for the next one. This month, I was stuck. I had nothing. But as I sat in The Mother House Chapel during my daughter Summer's 8th grade graduation ceremony, it came to me.

As I sat in the Chapel, which is stunningly beautiful and very reverent, I allowed myself to close my eyes and thank God for the blessings of my daughter. Has it really been thirteen years? After the ceremony, we went to a reception where the school showed a series of pictures set to music that chronicled our kids' lives from 1st through 8th grade. Ina matter of minutes, we watched our beautiful babies turn into teenagers right before our eyes.

My "baby" is now a young woman, and the years have flown by way too quickly. Like any parent, I have tried to capture all of "the moments", but in truth we never really can. One day she is waiting for my car to pull in the driveway so she can jump into my arms, and the next it's a quick kiss on the cheek as she is running out the door to yet another activity.

Soon the boys will come knocking, and I will flip out and debate whether or not to keep the old 12-gauge by the door to ward off anyone I see coming. It won't matter if they have tattoos or can boast being a Rhodes Scholar, I won't approve and I am sure that I will drive Summer nuts.

As the graduation ceremony wound down, there was a final reading from scripture: "But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love." Doesn't that say it all? The greatest of these is love. Nothing says it more clearly to me than the love shared between a father and daughter.

It's true that there are many more great memories to come, and I am sure I will try even harder to capture them all. But the days of my "baby" are gone. I have found the measure of a man in the eyes of my daughter.

Mark Stevens