In six hours I'll be doing something I've done 50 times before; I'll celebrate a birthday.  I'm told that the day I was born I weighed 12 pounds!  Apparently, another new father was bragging in the waiting room about his son who was 11 pounds, and a hospital staff person told him, "This man's son is twelve pounds!"  One of the times they brought the babies to their mothers, we were all brought out in Christmas stockings.  Unfortunately, I didn't fit, so they split the stocking down the seam and draped it over me.  When my father came home for a meal, he told my older brothers, "He's so fat he's almost repulsive!"

I don't remember many specific birthdays as a child.  Since it is three days before Christmas, a lot of my memories are a blur of the two events in one memory.  I do remember one birthday party where I was given a kaleidoscope.  I'm not sure who I got it from, but it was an amazing gift: all the changing colors and images were mezmerizing.

In third grade I had a big birthday party.  My best friend from school, Tommy Tiller came, and he was most excited to see my pet turtle, Gilligan.  I was equally excited to show off my shelled little buddy.  I don't remember much else about the party, but I do know that Tom Tiller became the CEO of Polaris and retired before the age of 50. 

I can't say I remember recent birthdays much  better than the early ones.  My 22nd birthday, however, is unforgettable.  I was home from my first year teaching in South Carolina, and I had borrowed my brother's car to go visit friends at my old college.  Desiring to get home on my birthday, I headed to Vermont from Maine in a snowstorm, I crashed my brother's car, totalling it.  Skidding in the snow, I lost control approaching a bridge and swerved to the right.  I crashed into the guard rail of the bridge and slid across to the other side.  Had I swerved left first,  I would have been hit straight on by a pulp truck carrying a load of logs heading in the other direction.  I could have easily died.  When I think of God's grace, this is often the first image that comes to my mind.

I was also driving on my 30th birthday.  I was coming home from a late meeting in the school district where I worked, and flipped on the radio.  I heard the song "Turning Thirty" by Randy Stonehill for the first time.  (Hear it here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcGTH1fTgcE )  Expecting our first child at that time, I loved a line that went "I've got a wife who really loves me, she makes my life complete, and a little baby daughter, she plays games around my feet..."

Tomorrow I'm turning 50.  That little baby daughter, who was still unborn on my 30th, is a sophmore in college, and about to go to Cambodia to work with churches and government agencies to fight human trafficking.  They'll even minister to young girls in brothels there.  Two more 'little baby daughters' have followed her into the world.  The car crash that could have taken my life was over half my life ago.  The little pet turtles like the one that fascinated the future Fortune 500 CEO are no longer legal to sell in the state of Maine.  The song "Turning Thirty" is still a favorite of mine, but thirty sounds so young now.  Our lives are truly a mist that lifts quickly, as James says.  "Teach us to count how few days we have, that we may gain wisdom of heart."  Ps. 90:12.