Right after the little plastic stick told me there would be a baby, the next question consumed me. “Is it a boy or a girl?” Those roughly 16 weeks before we knew the answer were the longest. They were also a time of self-discovery.

Whenever someone asked me if I wanted a boy or a girl, I hesitated. I knew the politically correct answer. I knew I couldn’t reveal the truth, and in some ways I didn’t want to just in case it got back to my child one day. At the same time it felt good to be honest. Honesty helped me to work through my emotions. Honesty allowed me to let go of my secret.

My secret was I wanted a daughter. I was conflicted for having a preference, but it was the truth. I wanted a daughter so much that I prayed and asked God to make my baby a girl. My desire became so intense that before we found out our baby’s gender I became concerned. Disappointment was inevitable if our baby was a boy. Guilt overwhelmed me.

Before the big reveal I realized I needed to work through this deep desire for daughter over a son. I thought back to my own relationship with my mom and her relationship with my grandmother. I thought about other mother-daughter relationships I observed – the ones of my girlfriends and my sisters-in-law.

I discovered I wanted a girl to have the opportunity to get it right.

Unfortunately my family does not have a history of strong mother-daughter relationships. There were many unresolved issues between my mom and me when she was alive, and my mom didn’t have a good relationship with my grandmother either. I often wondered if it’s possible for mothers and daughters to be friends as adults. However, as I waited to find out my baby’s gender, I had hope that healthy mother-daughter relationships were possible. I wanted to experience that kind of relationship in my life, and so I asked God for a daughter.

The twentieth week finally arrived in late May, and we went to the ultrasound appointment. The midwife wrote our tiny baby’s gender on a card, put it in an envelope, and sealed it. We took the envelope to a fancy restaurant, just my husband and I, and over dinner we opened it.

God answered my prayer.

Tears streamed down my face. I had my daughter.

She’s now nineteen months old, and I’m learning an important lesson to raising a daughter – I can’t get it right. I’m such a broken person. Broken innately and broken from the world around me. All of my brokenness is right there with me as I raise my daughter.

And my daughter is broken, too. She is broken because she is a human being, and the enemy will use this world to break her even more.

No, I can’t get it right, but God can. There is nothing good I can do in my relationship with my daughter apart from God. He is my wisdom. He is my sustainer. He is my hope.

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Brenda Rodgers: After years as a single woman chasing after marriage instead of chasing after Jesus, Brenda considers herself a “recovering single”. Now her passion is to mentor young women to live purposefully and grow in their relationship with God and others. Brenda has been married for five years to a heart transplant hero and is the mom of a toddler girl miracle. She is also the author of the eBook Fall for Him: 25 Challenges from a Recovering Single. You can also read more on Brenda’s blog - www.TripleBraidedLife.com - and follow her on Twitter and Facebook.