Birthday… Today is mine. It is also what I call my mother’s ‘birthing’ day…the day she gave birth….to me.
I have two birthing days. Two sons, healthy baby boys, born just a few minutes before nine o’clock in the morning after a long night of hard labor, 6 ½ years apart. Every year when those birth days come around I re-live the hours before, during, and after…remembering.
Today, 55 years ago, my mother was alone in an army hospital hundreds of miles away from any family or friend except for my daddy….and he wasn’t allowed in the room. (things are so different now, thankfully…)
Going thru childbirth for the first time, not knowing what to expect, alone with the pains except for strangers… Thank You God that You were there with my young mother.
I don’t remember that day, but it happened. Obviously.
I also don’t remember the day of my spiritual birth. I remember the day I was baptized. (two of them actually…) I remember times of repentance, times of knowing His Presence intimately… I recall definite times of change, times when I knew that I knew His direction and answers, times when His Voice was almost audible to my ears and not just to my spirit.
I don’t remember the moment of my spiritual birth. But it happened. Obviously.
“He gave me birth through the word of truth, that I might be a kind of first fruit of all He created.” (James 1:18)
“Praise be to the God and Father of my Lord Jesus Christ ! In His great mercy He has given me new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade…”(1 Peter 1:3,4)
There was a long time that I questioned my spiritual birth…my salvation… Am I saved? Have I been re-born? I don’t remember an event.
Perhaps it is different for you. And that’s ok, even great ! For me…it was a process. Somewhere along the way, I was ‘born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring Word of God.’ (1 Peter 1:23)
Somewhere along the way, amid my struggle to re-create myself, trying to ‘fix’ all that was terribly wrong…I got out of the way long enough for God to do His work in me. I got tired enough to surrender the fight, accept that I was defeated in the battle against sin, keep the desire to have victory over it, yet look for victory from The One Who died to offer it to me.
Hallelujah, What a Savior !
Thank You Lord Jesus on this, my birthday…for Your birthing me…whatever that date was.
It happened.
It is obvious to me.
