Today is a big day in our home, as we celebrate the birth of our sweet Sarah, who turned five today. It is also a day of great celebration as we celebrate the birth of Kathy, who graciously shares this day with her daughter.
But from everlasting to everlasting the LORD’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children – with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts. (Psalm 103:17-18)
We opened one present for each of the birthday girls before the family headed off for a week at camp — a CD for Kathy, and a couple of little people for Sarah to play with on the drive.
Once we were all ensconced in the Duckabush house, we started to open presents in earnest. As the clock sliced away at the minutes before I had to get to bed (I have to work this week, and so am staying home while everyone else is at camp, sniff, sniff!) I began to run into some peculiar resistance. Kathy didn’t want to open her presents. She loves the anticipation of her birthday so much, that she can hardly stand to let it end. As we have tried to follow a budget this year, she knows this will be a sparser year than some, and I had to promise her that I had at least one present still in the mail before she would agree to open most of her gifts.
Sarah can always count on a brother or two hovering nearby to ‘help’ her with her gift-opening
Sarah had no such compunctions, but we did end up limiting her gift-opening so as not to overwhelm her with the generosity of her siblings and over-indulgent parents.
Rachel and Sarah bought their mama a new tea kettle, something she has wanted for a good while. Daniel and David went in on a fancy new frying pan, one with a handle that can stand the heat of the oven (in case she wants to make a frittata, I’m told). Joshua bought some music CDs, as we renew our efforts to satisfy Kathy’s love for variety in Christian music.
Some years ago I bought Kathy a colorful beach towel for her birthday, and eventually inherited it as my bath towel. The towel is starting to fade with age, and so …
I looked up ‘birthday’ on my favorite online Bible reference site and discovered that the only recorded scriptural accounts of people celebrating the day of their birth (apart from Jesus and the three Magi) seem to involve Pharoah (the good one, who was smart enough to hire Joseph) and a rather gruesome tale about Herod’s birthday party. Celebrating birthdays doesn’t seem to be much of a big deal in scripture, except for this rather graphic reference in the book of Ezekiel, when God reminds Israel that she was nothing before he chose her:
On the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to make you clean, nor were you rubbed with salt or wrapped in cloths. No one looked on you with pity or had compassion enough to do any of these things for you. Rather, you were thrown out into the open field, for on the day you were born you were despised. Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood, and as you lay there in your blood I said to you, “Live!” I made you grow like a plant of the field. You grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels. (Ezekiel 16:4-7a)
My two birthday girls were not despised on the day of their births, but it is sobering to think that, except for God’s kindness toward each of us, we would be ‘thrown out into the open field’ to die, forever cut off from his glory because of our sin. Remembering our helplessness and God’s gracious salvation through His son, Jesus, it seems very fitting that we celebrate Jesus’ birth with such lavish display and outpouring of good will toward our fellow man. Kathy and Sarah’s birthdays are well-situated at the other end of the year, when our budget and shopping stamina is not so exhausted from Christmas.
This year the kids seemed to have definite ideas about what to buy their mother, which was a great relief to me.
For several months, Kathy has been hinting about her desire for Photoshop Elements, a software package that she hopes to use to enhance some of her digital camera pictures. In June, she stripped the veils off her hints and began making less guarded comments, perhaps fearing that I would somehow not realize what she wanted for her birthday. Spitefully, I maintained an air of insouciance and bland disinterest, desperately clutching at the hope that I could still give her the software as a surprise. I’ve never been very good at insouciance, as it turns out, so I’m sure she was not surprised to receive Photoshop Elements as her ‘big’ present. Smug and delighted: yes, surprised: no. At least I can spell ‘insouciance’, which is no small thing in this day and age.
Now she has to contain her glee until she gets home, since the software will probably not install on our old laptop. And she thought opening the gifts would end the anticipation!
As the household settled down, Kathy persuaded the passel of boys in the next room to brush their teeth, with some success. It should be a fun week of Camp and Cousins!
Teeth-brushing, tongue-brushing, what’s the difference, as long as you’re sincere?
He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD. (Proverbs 18:22)
Thanks be to God for His abundant favor and blessing to me! Thanks, Mamie and Grand-dad, for raising such a godly and delightful daughter!
