Happy Birthday, Jonathan!

Happy Birthday, Jonathan

Today is my oldest son’s birthday, he turns 25. He was our first...full term pregnancy, toddler, preschooler, kindergartener, teenager, high school graduate, college graduate, married, master’s graduate, and now medical school student. Through all these ‘firsts’, he has set a high standard for his siblings, a standard of excellence that they are achieving themselves. After 24 hours of unproductive labor and then a C-section, we were presented with our son. Although the birth of any child is special, I’m not sure there are words that can adequately explain the feelings we felt when we first met the ”flesh of our flesh”, face to face for the first time. Those memories still bring a smile to my face and deep joy to my soul.

He has always been such a special son. As a toddler and preschooler he was always so happy, excited about life and all it had to offer. He never had a bad day.....In school, the teachers’ only complaint was that he talked too much. He graduated at the top of his class. When it came to choosing a college, he decided on Taylor University. It wasn’t his first choice, until he went there for a visit. There he met his best friend, Mandy, who became his wife 3 ½ years later. What a wonderful encourager and friend God has provided for him in her. She has been a blessing to him in so many ways and thereby to us. He’s currently in his 3^rd year of medical school and doing so well. Our hearts are filled with gratitude to God for all He has done for him.

God is so good! In spite of all my failures as a mom, God has chosen to bless my son. I realize that it’s not because of anything that I have done, but His grace and mercy that Jonathan is where he is today. My heart is filled with gratitude to God for the blessing He has given me in my son.

My son has also helped me understand about the love of God. I can’t think of anyone that I would willingly give up my son’s life for...but that’s exactly what God did for me. Galatians 4 says that when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, His one and only Son, to be born of a woman...to redeem us, through His substitutionary death, that we might receive the full rights of sons. He gave His Son on my behalf out of His deep love for me. Every time I doubt God’s love for me, all I have to do is look at the cross and recognize that He willingly allowed His son to take the punishment and wrath that I deserved. He gave His Son for me....an act of love I can barely comprehend. But it doesn’t stop there; he gave me the full rights of a son. That is important, because for the most part, daughters had no rights. They were property to be passed from father to husband. But God sees me as a son in terms of my inheritance, WOW!

So happy birthday, Jonathan! Thank you for being such a wonderful son! Thank you dear Father for the blessings you have showered down on him. But thank you most of all for letting me see, through my love for my own son, how wide and long and high and deep is the love that you have shown me through Christ Jesus.