Today is my second sons’s birthday. I can think back 21 years ago to realizing this would be the day, starting labor, going to the hospital,… These are special memories.
With some of my children, I don’t have these beginning memories. Another woman does and they are still special memories but I just don’t possess them. Still, we have special beginning memories such as when we first met our child, when they first slept at their new home and entered our family. These are special first memories too. Recently on social media, I saw a touching, accurate quote, “A child born to another woman calls me mom. The depth of the tragedy and the magnitude of the privilege are not lost on me”- Jody Landers. These two beginnings some of my children have are significant in our lives.
We all have the potential for more than one beginning and two birthdays. We are born physically on a given day, into a world imperfect, corrupted by sin. Our parents and situations are all uniquely our own and these memories are special. Yet we have the potential to be born again! Two birthdays! God desires us to come to Him, accepting the gift of eternal life through His son, Jesus, and His sacrifice on the cross. When we have our eyes opened to the truth of this great need we have for a parent who will never leave us or forsake us, loving us unconditionally and with an everlasting love, we can respond and be adopted as His child into the family of God. We are at that time born again. How great is the love the Father has lavished upon us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are!
I pray that we can each celebrate both birthdays with all of our children. This could bring no greater joy to me as a parent!
