Starting Right
Starting Right is a 5 minute Day Starter to help keep you motivated, encouraged, and focused throughout your day. DannyMac is a pastor, teacher, motivational speaker, husband, and father. His years of leading and training people have given him vast experience in helping individuals to accomplish change in their lives and meet their goals. He can help you set the course for your day by offering practical advice from God's Word in a positive and fun way. There is no better way to begin your day than by Starting Right with DannyMac.
Starting Right
When Words Fail, Love Still Speaks
Some mornings demand more than coffee. Today we open a tender letter from a father to his daughter, Bristol—a child whose life carried deep beauty alongside relentless suffering—and we sit with the kind of love that keeps showing up when nothing is easy. The story moves from first words and birthday joy to hospital rooms, long drives in the night, and the ache of never hearing “Daddy, I love you.” Through every turn, the father’s refrain is steady: I loved you. He says that love wasn’t manufactured by endurance alone; it was placed in his heart by God.
We talk about how real love looks in the grit of daily care: feeding slowly, changing diapers for years, holding a hurting body, and praying when anger rises and faith feels thin. The letter doesn’t pretend grief is light. It names the pain, then lifts our eyes toward a larger promise—the vision of Bristol free and whole, a reunion ahead, and a crown before the coffin. That hope frames mourning without rushing it, allowing tears and trust to stand side by side.
To anchor that hope, we turn to Psalm 34: a voice that praises through fear, seeks help and finds an answer, and promises that the angel of the Lord surrounds those who tremble and trust. If you’re grieving, you’ll find simple, steady steps here—short prayers when words fail, a community to lean on, and a way to carry both memory and expectation. If you’re walking with someone who mourns, you’ll hear how to show up without speeches and hold space that heals.
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Good morning and welcome to Starting Right with Danny Mack. I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great five-minute start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back, relax, and let me help you start your day right. Just about three weeks ago, a friend contacted me and told me about the unexpected death of her son. Through the tears and the sobs I could hear the agony in her voice. My heart aches for her. I can't begin to understand the depth of the pain of losing a child. Dr. James Dobson has helped parents deal with this throughout the years. Several years ago he received a letter from a man who had just lost his daughter. There was a letter that was to doctor Dobson, and then the envelope also contained a second letter. It was a copy of a letter from this father to his daughter who had passed away. Her name was Bristol. Let me share it with you now. My dear Bristol, before you were born I prayed for you, in my heart I knew you would be a little angel, and so you were. When you were born on my birthday april seventh, it was evident that you were a special gift from the Lord. But how profound a gift you turned out to be. More than the beautiful bundle of gurgles and rosy cheeks, more than the firstborn of my flesh, a joy unspeakable. You showed me God's love more than anything else in all creation. Bristol, you taught me how to love. I certainly loved you when you were cuddly and cute, when you rolled over and you sat up and you jabbered your first words. I loved you when the searing pain of realization took hold that something was wrong, that maybe you were not developing as quickly as your peers, and then when we understood that it was far more serious than that. I loved you when we went from hospital to clinic to doctor looking for a medical diagnosis that would bring some hope. And of course we always prayed for you, and prayed and prayed. I loved you when one of the tests resulted in too much spinal fluid being drawn from your body and you screamed. I loved you when you moaned and cried, when your mom and I and your sisters would drive for hours late at night to help you fall asleep. I loved you with tears in my eyes when confused you would bite your fingers or your lip by accident, and when your eyes crossed and then went blind. I most certainly loved you when you could no longer speak, but how profoundly I missed your voice. I loved you when your scholiosis started wretching your body like a pretzel, when we put a tube in your stomach so you could eat because you were choking on your food, which we fed you one spoonful at a time for up to two hours per meal. I managed to love you when your contorted limbs would not allow ease of changing your messy diapers. So many diapers. Ten years of diapers. Bristol, I even loved you when you could not say the one thing in my life that I longed to hear back. Daddy, I love you. Bristol, I loved you when I was close to God and when he seemed far away, when I was full of faith and also when I was angry at him. And the reason I loved you, my Bristol, in spite of these difficulties, is that God put this love in my heart. This is the wondrous nature of God's love, that he loves us even when we are blind and deaf or twisted, in body or in spirit. He loves us even when we can't tell him that we love him back. My dear Bristol, now you are free. I look forward to that day, according to God's promises, when we will be joined together with you with the Lord, completely whole and full of joy. I'm so happy that you have your crown first. We will follow you someday in his time. Before you were born I prayed for you. In my heart I knew that you would be an angel and so you are. Love Daddy. In these times of incredible pain and loss, there is only one place where we can find any hope. And just like this father did in this letter, the only hope can truly come from God. I read a letter from another parent who'd lost a child, and they found encouragement and strength in these verses from Psalm 34. I will praise the Lord at all times. I will constantly speak his praises. I will boast only in the Lord. Let all who are helpless take heart. Come, let us tell of the Lord's greatness, let us exalt his name together. I prayed to the Lord and He answered me. He freed me from all my fears. Those who look to Him for help will be radiant with joy. No shadow of shame will darken their faces. In my desperation I prayed and the Lord listened, and he saved me from all my troubles. For the angel of the Lord is a guard, he surrounds and defends all who fear him. Take care, my friends. We will talk again tomorrow. Thank you for listening today, and I invite you to join me Monday to Friday right here on Starting Right with Danny Mack.
