I am the richest of all men...

My youngest turned 9 this week.  My kid's birthdays always bring the nostalgic contemplation side out in me. Life seems to be zipping along and then all of the sudden the balloons and steamers kindle the fires of memory.  I am reminded with great joy and deep sorrow that one day they will grow up and leave me and start their own families...in their own houses...with some painfully inferior husband who isn't worthy to have jewels such as these in his life. Sometimes the fatherly nature of my thoughts is so predictable.    

People always say that life goes faster the older you get.  I'm not sure that it goes any faster, but you definitely grow in the understanding of what it is that is actually happening.  Your comprehension of life grows and it seems like it takes more of your time to just mentally take it all in.  The becomes most evident to me in the lives of my daughters.  Through them I see the life of a 15, 12, 10, and 9 year old through 41 year old eyes.  I remember when I was 15 and thought I knew everything but was terrified that maybe I didn't.  When I was 12 and was desperately concerned that my school mates like me.  When I was 10 and the big questions in life consisted of what was for dinner and what do I want for Christmas.  When I was nine and there was no place better than my dad's lap.  

But then you grow up.  You begin to see that at every stage of your life that your thinking is limited.  You realize that you never arrive, you continually grow, change, and deepen in your understanding of what is going on around you.  I think there comes a day, or maybe a number of days, where you make peace with this.  You realize that you won't achieve all of your dreams. You realize that it's okay that you don't.  Part of the process is the epiphany that some of your dreams would have destroyed you and others would have shaped you in a very different way. Life then becomes a process of loving what you have instead of longing for what you don't. Realizing that sometimes in our constant desire for more we cheapen and devalue what we have.  

One of my favorite things to say is "I am the richest of all men."  I know this is true.  I believe it...most of the time. I have everything that I could want.  I have a relationship with Jesus who is "making all things new".  I have an amazing wife who keeps me fresh and alive. I have four beautiful daughters who, if they could ever grasp even a tenth of how much I love them, would never have self-esteem issues. I have extended family and friends, a warm and solid house, a job where I get to invest in the lives of others.  What more could I want?  

Kid's birthdays are good for me.  They remind me that life is short...but sweet.  They point me to the gifts I have rather than to the gifts I don't.  It's a lesson that I seem to need to re-learn over and over.  But that's always the way it is with truth.