Growing
up there was never a birthday celebration skipped. Typically, mama would cook a meal and cake of our
choice. Some years we had the entire extended family to join us for supper, some
years an "attempt to stay up all night", squealing girls
slumber party was included (which I'm sure my parents are thrilled those are
only a distant memory). Regardless of
the way we celebrated my mom always did her best to ensure I enjoyed the
special day. Now that I'm a mama I have
the responsibility of planning birthday celebrations for Roxie Kyle. We weren't sure we were going to be with
Roxie on her first birthday so when we found out that she would be home, my mind started spinning.
The
meaning of Roxie is "star; bright; dawn" so it seemed only
appropriate that we celebrate with a star theme. So the planning began. We would have star shaped sugar cookies, a
big number one cake decorated with stars, star suckers, star garland . . .
One night
when I was checking things off of my party to do list I began to think about
this little girl we were celebrating.
She truly was a "star" in our lives and had
"bright"ened our home so much!
As much as I wanted to celebrate her first year of life, I had to stop
for a minute and ask myself what all this work was for. You see the decorations and food and hoopla
is fun, but I've found it's so easy to get
wrapped up in all the extras, the things that truly don't matter. I don't necessarily think there's anything
wrong with the star garland streaming from every corner of the room or dozens
of star shaped sugar cookies. Who
doesn't like a big old sugary piece of cake piled high with ice cream at a
birthday party?!
However, is that
overshadowing the true source of our celebration?
"Through
him we have birth and life and every thing and every person in our lives. So God is the reason we have anything to celebrate. He is the ultimate source of any of our celebrations." -Noel Piper
Roxie
Kyle is a gift from our Father. She is
made in His image, knit together in her birth mother's womb, planned before the
creation of the world to be a part of the Wilson family. The type of celebration may vary from year to
year but what should not vary is that we will strive to demonstrate God's love
for her and say to her "we are thankful to God for giving us you!"
Every
good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights
with whom there is not variation or shadow due to change. James 1:17
