Today is Veteran’s Day but it is also my firstborn’s birthday. There is something joyful and sad about a child’s birthday. I can still picture him as he looked when he was newborn, yet he stands before me now a grown man. Where did those 22 years go?

I have good reason to be proud of him. He’s gifted in many ways, intelligent, logical yet caring, devoted to the truth. He is a man after God’s own heart. I couldn’t ask for more.

But it’s still strange to watch him and his brothers grow up around us like tender shoots into mature, spreading trees. Sometimes I have flashbacks of them as toddlers and wish I could hold them as I did back then. I used to protect them. Now they could protect me.

Still, this is the way God designed life, and I wouldn’t trade the changes for anything. The future is bright, despite the new things (good or bad) we must embrace. Someday our family will grow again and I’ll have daughters-in-law to love and grandchildren to cherish like I’ve done our own children since the day they were born.

But not yet.

I’m grateful for the times we still have as a family, for the friends that crowd our house, for the crazy antics that accompany a household of young adult men.

It’s good to remember their birthdays.