5 years old
(4 year blue chair picture ???)
3 years old
18 months old
10 months old
9 months old
6 months old
1 month old
Dear Josiah,
Happy birthday, my son! Here the days have rolled on by for another week and a half, but I still want to record some thoughts as you mark a full decade of life!
You continue to be a delightful, joyful, spirited young man. You are still predisposed to come over for a big hug in the morning, and you have a huge grin, easily shared.
You're a 4th grader this year, gaining ground in those tricky multiplication facts and making wonderful advances in ordering your time and being faithful to complete your work each day. You've grown greatly in reading, you are a creative and articulate budding writer, and you continue to absorb amazing quantities of information about animals and science.
You love the Redwall series of audiobooks. You're in the middle of another season of your basketball club, and you enjoy coloring, drawing, and painting. It's a pleasure to see your zest and curiosity in many areas.
You enjoy your good friends in church, homeschool coop, and extended family, and your vivid imagination makes for pretty riotous fun with siblings as well as friends. This year you wanted to join the children's choir, and I've loved seeing you singing earnestly as we worship with the other believers.
You have an infectious laugh, bounding stride, quickly moving mind, and wildly creative streak. Your sensitive spirit and often profound understanding of biblical truth are frequent evidences of God's grace at work in your life. You are also gaining a habit of Bible reading and memorization, which I pray will be a lifelong anchor for you.
Sometimes (predictably) tempers flare among your siblings, but you are tender to correction. We pray you will reflect the full-hearted pursuit of the Lord as did your namesake, "who turned to the Lord with all his heart and with all his soul and with all his might, according to all the Law of Moses" (2 Kings 23:25).
You demonstrate a lot of flexibility and generosity, which is a big blessing in a busy family. Even when you don't get your first choice in something, you often show a contentedness and willingness to adjust that is very refreshing to my heart.
This spring, I've been studying Job, and we have just come to the place where God Himself speaks to Job (from a whirlwind!). The marvels of creation and the animal kingdom--which so fascinate and inspire you--are so clearly a mark of God's astounding creativity and design.
Who has let the wild donkey go free? Who has loosed the bonds of the swift donkey, to whom I have given the arid plain for his home and the salt land for his dwelling place? ...The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the pinions of love? ... She deals cruelly with her young, ... because God has made her forget wisdom and given her no share in understanding. When she rouses herself to flee, she laughs at the horse and his rider. Do you give the horse his might? Do you clothe his neck with a mane? ... Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? ... Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord? ... No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me? Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. Job 39:5-41:11You just completed an essay for writing about two of your "dream jobs," and they both involved exploring creation and discovering more about the plants and animals God has made. You wrote, "Truthfully, one of the jobs that I most want to do is a zoologist because I get to be out in nature and see God's handiwork."
Well, I don't know if you'll be a zoologist, but I pray that you will regardless always have a love of observing God's handiwork and tracing the mysteries and majesty of His ways in the world around us all the way up to the glorious revelation of His perfect sovereignty, design, and love.
As God trumpets so gloriously to Job, if we are confronted with our own limitations and weakness in the face of the created world, how much more should we humbly worship and trust in the great Creator and Sustainer of all things.
As Romans 11:33-36 exults, "Oh, the depth of teh riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! 'For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?' For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen."
Most especially mysterious and wonderful is God's plan to redeem sinners at the cost of His own Son, who died in our place. As we revel in the truth of Easter's victory, may we trust in, cling to, and follow Jesus with full and joyful hearts!
I love you, Josiah,
Your mom
