How Will You Celebrate Your Birthday?

Ecclesiastes 3:11 "He has made everything beautiful in his time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they can not fathom what God has done from beginning to end."

Princes, knights and castles. A much-anticipated day, the house buzzed with the frenectic joy of 15 three year olds decked out as knights and princesses. The blonde, shy birthday boy wore his plastic knight's breast plate and helmet proudly, wielding his sword in his chubby right hand as he frolicked with his buddies. The warm buttery smell of popcorn filled the air as the March wind blew outside the sliding glass door. The culminating present that year was a dazzling blue training wheel bike, complete with yellow racing stripes and a jarring horn that he loved to push over and over and over. It was Ben's third birthday party. He loved sword-fighting and making castles, so the theme he chose was no surprise.

Fast forward seven years and my little toe-headed Benjamin is not so little anymore. He turns ten next week and he is the tallest in his class. His blond hair has been polished into a light brown, worn in a shaggy surfer style that is so popular in our hometown. His long legs show ten years of bumps and bruises from many adventures climbing the welcoming magnolia tree outside our front door, riding and occasionally toppling off of his adult-sized bike, and colliding on the trampoline with his friends. His third grade year was a doozy - frustrating parent-teacher conferences, inconclusive doctor visits, hopeful and tear-filled prayers. Seeking a balance between embracing his uniqueness and holding him to the fire, in God's sweet grace, he has brought us all into a more peaceful year. It's not a perfect year, but it certainly has fewer potholes.

When talk of his birthday celebration arose I wondered what he would choose as his theme for a party - lazer tag, indoor carting, paint ball? "Mom, what I really want to do is get baptized." Wow, that option had not even been on my radar. I had thought secular; he thought spiritual. I had thought now; he was thinking forever. Thank you, Jesus, for setting eternity into the heart of my son, my ten year old, curious and crazy little boy, turned young man of God.