Celebrating 16 years with my #1 Son!

On May 22^nd we celebrated our #1 son’s 16^th Birthday.  In all honesty it was far from a super 16.  Partly because his birthday always seems to fall during the week of final exams and it is really hard to celebrate when you have end of the year tests looming on your birthday.  But mostly, this past year has been a tough one for my big boy.  In order to protect his privacy, I don’t share a lot about my oldest son.  He is a typical teenage boy and even though I get very little traffic on this blog he doesn’t want his mom broadcasting his life to anyone even if it is just to my mom, sister and best friend.  Nevertheless, I can say that growing up in today’s world is downright hard for kids.  There are countless vehicles for the enemy to attack our sons and daughters in ways that debilitate them emotionally.  They are faced with temptations and pressures that force them to comprehend things that I didn’t encounter until I was an adult and for kids who are fragile or who naturally struggle with self-esteem issues, life can be brutal ,  a minefield loaded with explosive hurts and unexpected confrontations.  Then you add on the pressure of succeeding  academically, throw in the need to build a resume full of activities in order to look attractive to a college and for a kid who doesn’t fall naturally into these things, it can be a rough road to adulthood.

And so as we celebrated his 16 years of life we remembered the promises of God that He will never leave us or forsake us. And that 16 years ago when God performed the miracle of placing our son in our family He did so with a beautiful plan for his life.  He embedded within our son characteristics, gifts and talents that would give him the ability to serve God and do great things for Him.  There are many times that I wake in the middle of the night and go into my son’s room to perform a middle of the night blood sugar check and as I watch him sleep I am reminded that when you peel back all the layers of confusion hurt and anger, he is simply a little boy who like most of us longs to be loved, accepted and to feel that he is important and valued by others but more importantly that there is a purpose to his life and the future awaiting him is exciting.

Like never before, I have been reminded of the fact that Satan is a liar.  He is the author of the confusion.  If he can get into our minds and cause us to believe that we are worthless and without hope then he has taken major ground in the battle for our souls.  He wants us and our kiddos to live in desperation.  As a mom of a teenager, I recognize the importance of pouring truth into my son…whether he wants to hear it or not I need to speak words of life that build oasis’s of hope and encouragement in  the recesses of his mind.  So that when the lies come and he feels like he is in a barren land of dry nothingness, he can run to that refuge of the waters of truth given to him by Jesus through the voice of his mom.   In thinking about this, I was reminded that when my son was small and would experience a hurt he would come running to me and I would scoop him up and love the hurt away…..that’s what mom’s do.  Well now that he is older, he doesn’t run into my arms when he is hurting so I need to deposit my seeds of comfort into his mind so that I can mentally love the hurt away.

Reminding my son that he is precious not only in the sight of the Lord but in the eyes of his parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins and friends, my mom and dad put together a birthday celebration for him when we were visiting in FL.   It was a fun time and it warmed my heart to see him smile.  Happy Birthday to my #1 son!!!!!!

For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Jeremiah 29:10-12