What a birthday!

On the fourth day of Christmas,
My true love sent to me
Four kissing frogs
Three chocolate bars
Two sparkling gems
And a flamingo in a tutu

Though I’m posting this on Monday, I’m writing it on Saturday night. Here in Texas it's just a few short days after we had 3 inches of fluffy, white snow! Snow on the ground is a very unusual thing for central Texas. We recieve a snow every year or so but it usually melts as soon as it touches the ground so actual snowman building snow is a rare treat. But good old Texas weather kicked in and the snow was gone by noon the next day and tonight the weather is about sixty degrees…maybe high fifties. It’s a lovely, perfect night and it’s my birthday!



I had a wonderful day with my family, and now as the birthday winds down, it’s nearly midnight. I'd been trying to write this blog entry for a few hours but kept coming up blank. This lyric, "four kissing frogs", is supposed to be about how Christmas should be about our prince, Jesus, and the real meaning of Christmas, and the peace our Prince brings us…but incorporating the frogs gave me pause. Though it is true that the world is full of people searching for something and coming up with frogs when all along Jesus is right there waiting for them. This is all so true but I really wanted to write more than this one paragraph and I wanted to write something special, something inspired...but I was coming up blank (sigh).

Now, getting back to my birthday, and that it was eleven o'clock--hang in there I think this is all about to make sense. So I was sitting here coming up blank and I finally gave up and decided to take advantage of the beautiful last hour of my birthday. I wrapped a throw about my shoulders and walked out onto my back deck. The night is absolutely gorgeous (did I say that already) the moon is just one night short of being the biggest it has been or will be all year long. It is sitting up there in the sky, so big and bright that at eleven o’clock I have no need for a night light. Despite the glorious illumination the stars are still clearly visible and so bright themselves it is surreal. Amazingly, no sooner did I sit down and look up than a shooting star flew across the sky!!! My heart jumped and I smiled feeling as if God had just given me His own Happy Birthday visit. It was soooo cool!

But you know, God is good—no, He is awesome and He could have stopped at one shooting star—after all it’s not just every night that you see one. But God didn’t stop there. OH NO, for my birthday my Prince gave me a fireworks display. I kid you not, I sat there for thirty minutes and saw eleven shooting stars, ELEVEN (or I guess it would be classified as a meteor shower ) either way it was the most awesome thing to see and the most awesome feeling sitting there. I felt as if God was putting on the show just for me! And to think, I almost missed it by sitting inside at the computer trying to figure out something inspiring to write for this blog entry…

I believe Christmas is like that. We can easily get caught up in the tinsel, the shopping, the cooking, the preparations and we can forget to stop and spend time with the birthday boy! The one and only Prince of Peace. I know for me today was my birthday and He gave me a marvelous gift—a reminder that He is with me and He cares for me and that I am special to him. Spending time with my family was the best present my family could give me and with Jesus it is the same way...He desires time with us. To write this blog I was trying to write something inspirational and God was outside waiting to inspire me all along (so I was kind of kissing frogs) I pray that during these next few days you’ll take time to spend time with Him. Just walk outside and take a few moments to look up at the sky and imagine how it was that glorious night long ago when He was born. I can only imagine what the sky must have looked like--what a night that must have been!


To us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and governent will be on his shoulders,
And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.
(Isaiah 9:6)

Merry Christmas everyone, peace and blessings to all,
Debra Clopton