God Answers Prayers… And Dreams (Meet Baylor’s Newest Cheerleader)

Last updated on: May 4, 2015 at 11:39 am by Kirk Franklin

God Answers Prayers… And Dreams (Meet Baylor’s Newest Cheerleader) 2015-05-04T11:39:18-06:00 Kirk Franklin

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It has been a yearlong journey of waiting, worrying, trusting, stretching and praying for my 17 year-old daughter Kennedy. Kennedy is our cheerleader mini super champ! She’s 4 foot 10, and bites like a Chihuahua. Spunky and full of energy. [Remind you of someone?]

Her life long dream has been to cheer on the collegiate level, so her focus since starting cheer was to achieve that goal. Kennedy is a beast at cheerleading; to the point, as a man I feel it is a legitimate sport. Sorry fellas!

We’ve been a “cheer family,” and have seen cheer camps, competing teams, and all of those hair bows and heavy duty make up they make those poor babies wear. As the college application process began, Kennedy had to figure out where to apply… where she wanted to spend her next 4 years. Kennedy, to her Mother’s dismay (and quite honestly mine too), decided she didn’t want to go close to home and applied to 4 out of state schools and two close to home…one of those being her big sister’s alma mater Baylor University. She admittedly did so (so she thought) to appease us…. One by one as the acceptance letters from the out of state schools start coming in, we noticed Kennedy start to panic! Now that the realization of starting college in the fall was truly in her face she really wanted to stay closer to home…she actually had to finally admit that not only was collegiate cheer her dream…but going to Baylor University was her dream as well… As Kennedy was receiving her acceptance letters, so were her good friends, and you guessed it, they were receiving acceptance into Baylor.

This of course shook Kennedy’s faith. As a Christian father, you’re always praying for those moments for God to do something that is a personal testimony builder for your children. Something that they can look back on and point to that God did just for them.

So…. my wife and I began to take Kennedy to go visit some of the other schools where she’d been accepted…I watched her try to imagine her college career at another university and think maybe she should give up on a dream that was important to her. We also made a call to Baylor’s admissions to check the status of her application.

“It’s still being processed,” they said.

W hen your children are hurting, you wish there was something you could do to fix it… Just maybe the university needed to know that she had suffered a major concussion her Junior year that made her GPA slip some. Or just maybe having her college guidance counselor double check as well would speed up the process. But the bottom line? There was nothing we could do but trust God’s plan for Kennedy. As parents, we had a job to do: to teach her not to give up on her dream and to prepare her for the fact that it might turn out looking different than she hoped.

Now, I know this is a lot just for cheer and college, and for some of you, this is probably the most boring blog I’ve done. But when it comes to building your children’s faith in God during our current cultural climate, I’ll grab every straw I can to give my children a light in the midst of a dark world. We told her to pray, make her request before the Lord, and wait to see What God’s plan is. Truthfully, that’s hard even for us adults. We sure hoped that what we desire is apart of God’s plan for us.

Baylor’s a very popular school, especially here in Texas. We knew this could be a long shot. But I noticed something. On her own, she would ask to do family prayer. On her own, she would quote scriptures on faith and trusting God. I slowly saw her build her own door. Not her Christian parent’s door, but hers.

The acceptance letter came! We rejoiced!

Now, the cheer auditions was another opportunity to build another door. Longer practices. Longer workouts. Baylor cheer clinic, and finally the auditions. And then, she waited. And waited.

And…

She got it.

I saw God do something for my baby during this season. She even said things in passing like “Dad, if I would’ve been accepted the first time, I would’ve gotten lazy. I can see why it had to happen like this.” I saw my baby start to put her own spiritual context to life’s disappointments. She was building her own future with he heavenly father. Not only was God preparing it for her, he was preparing her for IT.

Whether you’re waiting on doctor’s results, a home loan, or a call back for that dream job, God is not playing with your emotions. He’s not trying to torture you with waiting and being in the dark. Honestly, He is creating divine moments for you to go deeper that you would’ve never taken on your own because the truth is life just gets in the way. David said, “He maketh me lie down” because sometimes we have to be forced to pray, to fight for faith, or to believe that He’s got us. What you hate, He loves. The time he has with you is precious to Him.

So while you’re squirming checking the mailbox every hour, He just wants to be close to you. By any means necessary. He has it already answered and worked out. So be not afraid my friend. Trust God’s heart when you can’t see His hand.

And, if you’re in Waco Texas anytime soon, buy yourself a ticket to a Baylor football game… so you can watch my baby cheer!

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