Deborah At Six

Deborah Dryden, my firstborn, is 6 years old today.

Birthdays are a great time to celebrate God’s goodness in life and act as a milestone to measure just how far we’ve come and how to still make it is a tribute to God’s grace.

For example I was reflecting the other day how gospel legend Fred Hammond is now 50 years old! I mean here’s a guy whose music has shaped a lot of my life and now the guy has hit half a century! What is that all about? What is that saying? Well one thing it is definitely saying, just like my firstborn turning 6 – time is moving on.

I am so happy to see Deborah reach this age. It doesn’t seem all that long ago when the little girl celebrated her first birthday in her little seat and everything. Last year she obviously hit the big five and that was an achievement. Yet here she is now taking another step in her development and I couldn’t be happier.

She brings so much joy in my life with the way she smiles and can laugh at the issues of life. Very recently she showed just how much she’s grown by getting higher answers in another episode of Family Fortunes which of course is the best sign of maturity.

She’s also developing her sense of humour – get this. Here I am as her loving father as the clock turns to midnight and she is finally making her way to bed as the day becomes the 29^th. (It’s holidays so they can stay up that much longer!) I’m tucking her into bed and so think it’s only appropriate to remind her of the story of how she came to be all those years ago.

Me: So not long after you came from your mother’s womb I was holding you gently in my arms and singing the lullabye of your name to you. As I sang you soon went to a blissful sleep.

Deborah: Yes Daddy, you’re sending me to sleep now.

What a cheek – what a girl. Surely this is another sign that the end is nigh!

Things are different for her again as she hits six, she’s in a new location and now she has two sisters to look out for with Zoë coming on the scene. She’s dealing with these changes very well and is a beam of refreshing simplicity when things could easily get all confused.

No, she’s not the perfect girl – she still cries at the drop of a hat. Then again I had a problem with the crying deal for years, and I didn’t turn out too bad. (Hey, I didn’t, I don’t care what the psychotherapist says!)

As she embarks on this the seventh year of her existence, my prayer is that she will go on from strength to strength growing up as a girl who knows how to have fun in life and becomes even more aware of God who makes her who she is.

In the meantime I celebrate her birthday and enjoy the party that is going on even as I type where she of course is the centre of attention, and rightly so. As long as I get the cake with the icing, I am not complaining.

Thank you Lord, for Deborah Christina Dryden.

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

dmcd