BIRTHDAY RAMBLINGS (JULY 9 2012)

Today is my 61st birthday.  I was up at 5:00 a.m.  the sun was not.  The sky was a grayish misty sheet hovering above the earth. The only light was from the half moon that stood at straight up 12 o'clock in the sky and the morning star, Venus, scouting the trail that the sun would soon follow. 

I left Gracie in the kennel, it was too early for her to get started.  I slipped on my jeans and t shirt, picked up my boots and sat down on the front steps to put them on.  That's funny, it didn't use to be this hard to get my boots on. Mr. Ed Cole has a saying that goes "I ain't never been this old before".  I"m feeling it this morning.

I walked down to the "tabernacle" dropped down on my hands and knees in the moist dirt there in the pre-dawn stillness.  Peace poured out of those woods and that sky and rolled over me.

Have you ever noticed how the folks that love you find ways of doing things that make you happy? 

My sister and I have developed a little habit.  We take each other out for lunch on our birthday week.  She came down last Friday and we ate at Heaton's.  She brought a shoe box full of goodies for me.  My sweet wife has given me gifts for two or three days already with the promise of more to come tonight.  I got to spend the day yesterday with Renae, Andi and  Perrin.  It was his first time to get to go to church with us and stay all day.  He did great.  Kimbery called this morning and she and "Strawberry" sang "happy birthday" to me while Josiah yelled in the background. Chris has already called to wish me "happy birthday" too.  Betty Cofer and Mary Floyd are coming down today to take me to lunch at the Peach Park.  What a great birthday already.  I like these birthday weeks much more than just one birthday day.

As I looked around and soaked in the blessings this morning I realized how God too, just seems to know exactly what I like.  There were birds singing all around me.  As I walked from the tabernacle to the garden it seemed as if He had stationed different birds with different songs all along the way to sing just for me.  And as I worked my way down the rows of the garden picking beans, some little morning doves cooed their little ditty from the elm tree. 

Yep, He knows just the things that make me happy.  Relatives calling and remembering you on your birthday, the birds singing, the quietness of the morning, Granny's barn all fixed up and in use, the grass all cut and neat, the rain on the garden, the cool morning breeze. 

If you know me you've got to know where I'm going with this.  He made me, He knows me, He understands what I like and He left me a promise. 

"Eye hath not seen nor ear heard neither has entered into the heart of man the things that God has prepared for those who love him".

And Jesus Himself said, "I go to prepare a place for you."  He's gone to get me a place ready.  A place "for me". If he loves me enough to set up my little 30 acres this morning for me to enjoy on my birthday, just think, JUST IMAGINE, what He's got in store for me, at my homecoming!

My birthday is just getting started this morning and I've already gotten more than I can say grace over.  When people get old and have birthdays they start thinking about death.  They frequent the doctors and worry about all the maladies that might befall them.   But I can tell you this, as much as I love birthdays, and the stuff my loved ones plan for me and give to me,  I'm going to love homecoming a whole lot more.  Afraid of dying?  Dreading death?  Shoot, I'm looking forward to it.  I get to go Home and Jesus is already busy putting up the decorations. 

I wonder what my "Welcome Home" banner will look like hung across gates of pearl and written in stars.