I cannot believe that I am so blessed to spend my life with you. The audacity of thinking someone would dedicate their life to living by my side… it’s almost absurd to consider it – but that’s what you’ve done.
And me, well, you know I can’t resist you. Before you had even made up your mind about me, I was hopelessly lost for you. I love you more at this moment than I even did when I wrote the last sentence… see? That one’s already outdated, too!
It’s both exciting and incredibly humbling to realize that you chose me. To know that I’m the one that gets to wish you a happy birthday first thing in the morning year after year, to turn off the lights each night, to make you coffee every morning, to keep your car filled with gas, to cheat at padiddle (and sometimes STILL lose), to cherish you, to honor you, keep you…
This sounds more like an anniversary anthem than a birthday post, but hopefully you get a glimpse of how honored I am that you willingly choose to spend the remaining years of our lives together.
Happy birthday, my love.
I have gotten to spend a lot of time with Ethan lately. Rachel works as a middle school counselor and leaves early on work days. On those days, Ethan and I have gotten into a morning routine.
I get up around 5:45 or so to spend time with Rachel before she leaves for work at 6:30, then I spend some time in the Word. Usually around 7:00, Ethan wanders out to the kitchen table where I’m sitting, climbs up into my lap and buries his head in my shoulder for around 10 minutes. Don’t be fooled: he’s not awake, he just isn’t fully asleep.
[side note] More than any other time of the day with him, at that moment I am beyond satisfied. I could sit like that hours. More than once this moment has brought about the analogies to God as our Father and us taking refuge in Him (…but that’s another blog post). [end side note]
Once he regains some sort of consciousness, I fix him breakfast. This usually consists of a cereal bar or something that lacks any sort of preparation – although this morning he had blueberry waffles (that’s right: dad-of-the-year right here). Then we play and wrestle on the floor until around 8:00 when it’s time for me to go to work and I have to drop him off at daycare.
Sometimes I shower and get ready for work in that time, too… but not always.
It is beyond comprehension how fast this kid is growing up. He’s walking, talking, climbing, high-five’ing & fist-pumping like a rockstar. It feels like Rachel told me she was preggers just yesterday, but in less than three months (78 days to be exact) he’ll be turning two years old.
That’s the paradox of fatherhood: I can’t wait to see him grow up, and I never want to see him grow up.
The month of April is bittersweet.
On one hand, it’s the month Rachel & I were married, it’s the month I gave my life to the Lord, it’s the month my parents were married… but on the other hand, it’s tax time.
This morning as part of my daily Scripture reading, I read Numbers 33 about the death of Moses’ brother Aaron. God ordained a specific time & place for him to die and even told him about it beforehand. And basically, once Moses & Aaron kicked off, the people of Israel were able to cross the Jordan River and conquer what is now known as the land of Israel.
At the Downing house, we pay someone to prepare our taxes for us. So getting our taxes done isn’t typically a stressful ordeal. The part that I hate is seeing how much we’ve given away or saved compared to how much we spent. It’s that death-like certainty of the exact dollars and cents that drive me crazy. It’s just never quite adds up to what we intended or hoped for.
And in the end, I rationalize it. And I move on but never really move forward. It makes me wonder what in my life needs to be put to death so I can start to make progress instead of just staying busy.
When do we have enough to walk away?
I read in Luke 5 today, about Jesus telling the soon-to-be-disciples to cast their fishing nets on the other side of the boat. When they followed his advice, they brought in more fish than they could have possibly imagined… and then they quit fishing.
“…he said to Simon, “Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” And Simon answered, “Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.” And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking. They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink.
…And when they had brought their boats to land, they left everything and followed him.”
I’ve gotten into the pattern of thinking that God gives us great gifts so we can remain in that position. A pay raise, making that huge sale, finally crossing that task off our to-do list – they’re all reasons to press forward, right? …Maybe the blessing isn’t the point. It could be that He’s allowing us to see a glimpse of what could be – if we would only take our eyes off of ourselves long enough to see it.
Maybe the material blessings we experience are only to put some context to God’s power and to free us from depending on anything other than Him. And that makes me wonder if I’m using this glimpse as a gateway to sit at Jesus’ feet or of freedom to as an excuse gain more “gifts”?
Just a random thought on my Monday morning.
