Daily Devotionals

Chip Shots from the Ruff of Life

Devotional: November 13th

Christmas draws ever the closer to us. I try not to show too much excitement about Christmas but I can't help it. I love the holidays, but I especially love Christmas. I think anyone who has been through the rigors of having children, or even just one child, can somehow understand the wonder of that very special night. My oldest child is a male. He was born at 5:59 P.M. on December 13. It was dark out at that time. I remember going to the lobby to call my parents and seeing all the lights outside the hospital there in Huntington, West Virginia.

Our doctor told us that John would probably be born right about Christmas. I thought that would be so neat to have a kid born Christmas Day. Then it hit me. He would never really have a birthday. His birthday would never be something special because it would already be something special. I am grateful that John was born twelve days before Christmas to spare him the conflicting feelings of his birthday celebration.

There are a lot of people who share their birthdays with other holidays. My grandchildren were born on Halloween. Of the many different holidays that we celebrate in the course of a year, there is only one month that does not have a major holiday celebrated in it. That is August. Yes, I know there's probably some obscure holiday that happens in the month of August but the entire nation doesn't celebrate it. The amazing thing is that the month of August just wears our family out for birthdays.

August 1 is the birthday of our nephews Scott and Wade and our niece Marianne. It was also the birthday of Becky's mother, Eleanor Fridley. The 4th is the birthday of our nephew Todd. The 8th is our son Sean's birthday while my own falls on the 10th. My late sister Peg's birthday was the 16th while her first husband, Danny Snyder, was, I believe, the 28th. With all those birthdays falling in one month if there was a holiday we would probably have hit it.

I have another birthday. March 19, 1961. This year I turned forty-four on that day. Forty-four years of being in Christ. Forty-four years of being a blood bought, Spirit filled, reborn child of the Father through Christ. On that day forty-four years ago I declared my allegiance to the Lamb of God and was immersed into His death, burial and resurrection and had my sins washed away by His blood. I was reborn. "Most assuredly I say to you, unless one is born of the water and the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God." John 3:5 God is the God of the living and His kingdom is of the living. You don't work your way into it. You're born into it.