late birthday boast

Have recently accomplished the noteworthy and extremely difficult task of aging another year, I will now proceed to offer my thanks to:

My fellow travellers. It would be a lonely road without you. Christ is enough should we be chosen to a life of loneliness, but it would be arrogant and wrong to take for granted the exceeding blessing of friendship: Brethren, may we all learn to love one another because of Christ, and to love the unconverted because He loves them.

  My family: Y’all are (drumroll, please) fuuuully awesome. Mom and Dad, sixteen years from now, when I’m old and boring, I hope to have supplied the “next best thing,” in abundance (if you follow me). Thanks for preparing for this next stage of childlike manhood; for allowing me to be the only sixteen year old that I know that got Pav lova with a Spider-Man candle on it. For doing more for me up to this point than this blog can express; for taking me to the ER when I plunged from a bunk bed and bit a second mouth in beneath my first one, and the time when I plunged from the window sill face-first with a toothbrush in my mouth. For allowing the humble to confound the proud, the foolish to confound the wise, and for being clay,  and instruments for my Adoption from the spirit of bondage. For being instruments of judgment, and river beds through mercy was sent; and for letting the ultimate goal of marriage and family, which is conformity to Christ, be lived out. To my siblings,  who were there when I drew my first breath, and have been great reinforced ever since: every year of my life, every day of my years, every second of my days, every moment that y’all have been there, will be remembered with gratitude to God as this life unfolds; let us bless Him for the past, strive to know Him in the present, and trust Him for future.

   To the God who holds all things in His hands, and loves us despite our shortcomings: to the Christ Who knows no change, Who’s sacrifice we cannot stifle, and Who’s gift we cannot repay: to the Spirit Who guides in paths to holiness for love’s sake, Who shows us our need, and Who’s wind blows the dust from within this temple, that we may be presented pure and holy to Him that loved us first: to the Godhead three in one be all glory, all desire, all affection, and may those Who have tasted and seen that He is good feel their hearts warmed by His breath to seek their all in Him.

  Let those all those who have reached another year increase in fellwoship with Him in a new way as the journey on life’s road, and may the Lamb that was slain recieve the reward of His sufferings. And may our only boast in new years be of Him.