Message to my Son on his Birthday

Today is my son’s birthday. He is forty-seven years young! And I’m not! Children are the best reflection of our age. But I’m not going to talk about that. Because…I don’t want to! I feel much younger than my age reveals to me. And my relationship with my son is a very good one by the grace of God! He is married with twin daughters and is an excellent dad and husband. I am very proud of him and I make a point to tell him often. He gets kinda shy with me when I tell him that.

I told him recently that I feel like his age and my age has equalized in my eyes. I converse with him as an equal and no longer as “father knows best.” We get together often for lunch or coffee(but mostly lunch, ’cause I buy 😊 ). But we have a good time together and laugh heartily. The little diner we frequent likes to see us come in, because they seem to be entertained by our conversations that we invite them to be a part of.

But the greatest thing about our relationship is that my son loves the Lord in very much the same way I do. When talking about the things of the Lord we understand each other without having to explain our meanings. His relationship with the Lord and his experiences are so much like mine, I sometimes think of Elijah and Elisha!

He’s a good son and I thank the Good Lord daily for giving him to me. And I’m very pleased that he has often told me that I have been a good dad, citing especially the normal hardships he went through in his teen years when he felt he needed my counseling the most. At those times he would tell me, or ask me, If we could talk alone. We spent many school nights in a coffee shop with me listening and him talking. His need to talk it out, I felt, was more important than any preaching from me. His “troubled teens” as he called them, were very easy, actually, compared to many that I would consider “normal” teens.

When I think of him being forty-seven, and at each of his birthdays over the years, I always have a blip video playing through the pictures of my mind at each age of watching him grow, develop and mature. From the day of his birth, seeing my first born (and only) for the first time, and almost passing out at finally being told, that he was a son; which I wasn’t aware until that moment, that I wanted so badly 😊).

So, today I celebrate my son, Sean, in whom I am well pleased in the Lord! Happy Birthday, buddy! And many more blessings of the Lord to come for you! With love, Dad. -g.w

Thank you, my Lord and Savior, for so wonderful a gift in my life, and for which I did nothing to deserve. And thank You Almighty God and Father for the amazing gift of Your Son, the Lord Jesus, for which I deserved even less! I thank you, my Father, for Your great mercy and loving grace, and tender Goodness that You have always bestowed upon me so often; the many storms and hardships in my lifetime and seeing me safely through them all under the shadow of Your wings. Amen!  -g.w

Children are a gift from the Lord;
    they are a reward from him.
⁴ Children born to a young man
    are like arrows in a warrior’s hands. Psalm 127: 3-4

I wrote this quickly and off the cuff from my ‘typewriter.’ Any writing errors found are strictly a mistake, but ok with me and will probably be corrected later -probably – maybe not.