Dave’s birthday post from last year can be seen here.

Happy Birthday, Dave, son-of-my-heart.   Happy birthday to a man who is both steady, worthy of trust and wildly abandoned and pliable and in the hands of God.   Happy day to some one who is youthful and adventurous, with ears to hear the Spirit of God and eyes to see what God is up to on the earth.   Happy and blessed days to an unassuming  guy who holds the keys to the very heart of God, as well as to our own hearts.   I don’t think people can know just by looking, perhaps not  until they have been in a room with you – the depth of character and the strength in spirit you carry.  

Last night, at our family celebration (Tredessa’s birthday,  your birthday and Father’s Day for you and dad and Tris and Rock), the film clip I chose for you seemed so obvious to me, I thought everyone would  select it.   And I cannot help but keep coming back to the parallels between the movie, Indiana Jones  and the Last Crusade,  and the prophet Elisha and you.  

Let me share a few of my thoughts:  Indiana Jones, in  finding the Holy Grail, chose wisely.   He saw the humility in the cup of a carpenter and though the other cups were regal and embellished and valuable, he understood what the greedy could not.   And I see you in that.   I can see the great cloud of witnesses in the heavenlies watching your life like an exciting soccer game.   They are like, “Yes! Alright-he chose wisely!”   And that is what I see you doing repeatedly.: Choosing wisely.   You chose a good wife, you are choosing a good and godly  life, you are choosing to raise your son with love and affirmation and empowerment according to God’s revealed plan for him.   You’re a good chooser.  

But before Indiana actually got to the carpenter’s cup, he had to cross a great chasm.   You feel the anguish of his dilemma as he knows how close he is to the treasure, to the Grail.   But it is a long rocky descent and there is nothing that can be seen that would save him from certain destruction.   He stands on a cliff edge deciding what he’ll do.   You hear the voices of his comrade: Hurry, Indie, you must hurry.   His father, who had been kidnapped by the Nazi’s to get Indiana in on the hunt for the Holy Grail,  will die  unless Indie succeeds.   His dad is praying, “Believe boy, you have got to believe.”   And no matter how many times I see the movie, that step of faith he takes, the first step, that crazy are-you-out-of-your-mind step always reminds me of what living by faith (and not by sight) is all about.   And I have watched you over these past two years, especially, open the acient book like Indie (only yours is The Book), read it, decide to believe and take a step and God has met your foot everytime.

I am telling you this today:  God is going to meet the step you are taking today and tomorrow and over the next 40 days.   Your foot will not slip.   And that, my sweet son was a prophetic word that rose up as I was typing! (See Psalm 121 – Lift up your eyes to the hills so you can see where your help is coming from, God won’t sleep through this!)

I have seen it with my own eyes.   I am a witness to your life and God’s great work in it.   I have watched God repeatedly call on you to do the impossible and He has given you level ground each time.   But you’ve gone willingly.   That is how you remind me of Indiana Jones.

That brings me to Elisha and comes partly from reading some 2 Kings yesterday.   He is interesting, but I know less about him than Elijah, his predecessor – which is  weird because Elisha did twice as many miracles.   Even after he died, a dead man thrown into his grave was brought back to life.   But I have been thinking about it – and I really see Elisha’s character in you: he was generally thought of as less crusty than Elijah.   He was powerrful enough to to perform miraculous feats, yet gentle and sensitive to the condition of the people, weeping over their fate.   He was a servant minister to Elijah, yet a powerful prophet of esteem in his own right, the mantle given him by Elijah after God chose him.

And it occurs to me that in both these men, there was a father-son relationship.   Indiana’s own dad had been kidnapped, but Indiana was risking everything to save him.   Elisha submitted himself to Elijah, his spiritual father.   These were both good and honoring sons.   They both committed themselves to sonship.   And so, they inherited everything the father had.

And on your birthday, I want to tell you what a good son you are.   I want you to know that we see the spirit of sonship in you toward your earthly fathers, spiritual fathers.   And we see that you have submitted your heart to the Father as a son who welcomes the training and discipline that comes with that.   That is why, today and all your days, you will walk in the inheritance of the Father.   All He has is yours.   And I wonder if your anointing might not pull some earthly fathers back from the brink, out of bondage?

I love you, son (your silly side, too)…Mom

pictured: Dave with Tara, Dave and son, Hunter, holding niece Gemma, Dave leading awesome worship, and Dave!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ezQD30TqZuA&feature=related   Dave and Tara singing at Pure By Choice, a Catholic Youth Conference 2007

See Tredessa’s birthday post from last year here.

Blessings on your birthday, Tredessa, mighty warrior and quiet-spirited woman of God.   Happy Birthday to my 3rd daughter and child, a glorious baby born on a glorious day.   Happy days and blessings on you, holy woman, centered not only in the middle of the family birth order, but in the middle of what God is doing on the earth in these days.   I am just so pleased with who you are and the faith-life you lead, Tre.   I am so proud of the woman you’ve chosen to be.   I am amazed at your giftedness and humility in its presentation.   I love the song of your heart and your commitment to really see people where they are and speak life into their woundings and brokenness.   I am in awe at how you see into the hearts around you when others are oblivious.

Here you are in full-time ministry, supported   by people who believe in your call.   That is a precarious place to be, but you trust God and press in to acknowledge and know  Him more and more.   Can He be as pleased to see that as I am?   Yes, I’m thinking.  

These are the gifts I am offering as prayer, the things so true I hope you will receive and open today:

I am praying for you a year of wonderful, fresh and energizing friendships.   You are such a loyal and true friend.   You work  tirelessly for the Kingdom, pouring time and life into inner city kids, and the destitute in other nations.   You administrate big dreams and huge projects  for visionaries and still have time to speak life into hearts, one-on-one.   You’re a caring and honoring daughter and a deeply loving sister.   You are instilling spiritual legacy into your nieces and nephews.   You watch and speak and pray and teach.   And I am just asking God to place you smack-dab in the middle of people who will pour life back, who will speak blessing over you, watch over you and be the kind of friend you are to everyone else.   I am praying you will reap everything you have sown and that it will be magnificently life-giving!

I am praying for your Jim-from-The-Office, your Mr. Darcy, your Boaz.   He is out there, my beautiful.   You possess so many of  Ruth’s attributes: she was devoted to God and to her family, she was humble and teachable, she was focused on her responsibilities – all the while trusting God to provide, and she was a woman of her word.   And so God sent her Boaz – a man devoted to God and successful in his business, a proven man, undistracted from his responsibilities, a man of his word and a man who jumped through all the necessary hoops to win Ruth for himself, thereby exemplifying the redemptive work of Christ.

And while the Bible does say God is your husband, I am still praying for the flesh-and-blood  husband/lover who’ll do your heavy lifting, mow the lawn and change the oil in your car.   I am praying for that man who will go to great lengths to win you to himself, for the one who will pay the price for a wife like you, even if he leaves his socks on the bathroom floor.   I am praying for your Boaz.

I pray you will come to understand the beauty of who you are.   I pray you will see what others see: you are a woman who is worthy of trust, beautiful inside and out.   I pray you can appreciate the girl in you who is sometimes silly and zany and  embrace your wildly romantic and passionate nature for the gift it will be to your future husband.   I am hoping you can grasp the amazing  anointing you have to administrate and organize and “put legs on” vision and operate in it with joy as it flows from who you were created to be, but not become bogged in the details of it, laying aside all the things God has spoken to your heart.   I pray that you will learn to trust yourself-with abandon and a sense of the carefree – just like the rest of us know we can.   You can trust you, Tredessa.

I pray you’ll know the intensity of the strength you have added to the minstry work going on at Confluence, and through Get the Word Out! and Leaving a Legacy.   I hope you can understand the gift you have been to Worship and the Word and Heaven Fest.   You are not a  shadow on the wall just because you’ve chosen to be a servant of all.   When you walk in the room, everyone else is stronger for it.   There is a sense that a quiet wisdom and element of the power of God has just entered, not with the persuasive words of man’s wisdom, but with the power and demonstration of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 2.4 NIV).  

Oh, my middlest of children-we’re the lucky ones.   “Blessed,” I know, but I am singing the Amy Grant song in my heart in honor of you today (http://youtube.com/watch?v=yE6MGGuxpa4).   It describes so well how anyone who knows you knows: they are the lucky ones!   How did God know, I wonder, how much I would need a Tredessa in my life?   Does He know, I wonder, how honored I am that I got to be “Tredessa’s mom” ( a title I accept with joy)?   Thank-you for your love of the Word of God and of the life of worship to Him you lead.    You’re the kind, when you love you love with all your might..  .

Happiest Birthday, sweet Dessa.   Oh baby, we’re the lucky ones…Mom

NOTE TO SELF: It is apparent that Tre is always the one behind the camera, our designated family photographer.   Take pictures of HER, now!

pictured:   Tredessa in Kindergarten and this past Easter at church

It is my mom’s birthday!

Happy Birthday, Mommiekins-

This is a big one!   Are you doing OK?   I won’t say how old you are, but will only mention you graduated high school in 1957.   But life is good, right?   You finally got dad to retire, sort of.   We’ll keep on him, mamala!

I think it is an amazing thing that the yearbook committee described you as, “A girl certain to please God.”   And long before Rick Warren published that wildly popular little volume on ‘purpose,’ you’d already determined yours: To live a holy life by walking close to the Lord.

And my sweet mama-I think you have fulfilled God’s purpose for your life in your generation!   I believe you have pleased God.   I am making the call – you have lived and are living  a holy life because something of the sacred permeates all the hours and minutes of your life.   You are blessed.   You were a loved daughter, and are now an honored mother and grandmother and great-grandmother.   You walk in health and the beauty of a heart that always chose love and believing the best in people.

I just wanted to say that you are the woman I admire above all others   I thank-you for asking God for me, for loving me and raising me for Jesus.   I still tear up at the line in the country song, “And when the day is done, my mama’s still my biggest fan,” because I know that and carry it close everyday!

So-know that you are called blessed.   Know that all of your children and their children and their children’s children call you blessed and praise God for you.   We’re the reason you were born – in case you wanted to know!

Stay for a long, long time, mamala.   I love you!…Jeanie

NOTE TO SELF:   Call mom – wish her a happy day!

Happy Birthday to my very first grandchild!   Happy Birthday Gavin, oh you who totally TRANSFORMED my life!   Happy Birthday, little red-headed Kelley kid!   Happy happy day to one of the most joyful, exhuberant people I have ever known!

Last week Gavin made his school prep visit to the pediatrician to update his shots and fill out the proper paperwork for getting him enrolled in school.   Stephanie said the doctor sort of quizzed and tested him to make sure he was “ready,” checking his reading skills and numbers intelligence and I am happy to say he “passed” with flying colors.   I was glad I didn’t know about the “test” ahead of time because I’d have been  a nervous wreck!   You see, I have been Gavin’s pre-school teacher for the past year.

For ever and always, I will cherish the time Gavin and I have spent in “the classroom” together!   There was reading and writing and counting and colors and shapes and concepts and painting and rhyming and online computer games (which I watched him learn, conquer and outgrow) on www.sproutonline.com. There were days when school lasted 15 minutes and days when it went for hours.   We’ve read Dr. Seuss’ ABCs a hundred times or more and much of Gavin’s bookworm “growth” was reading the Bible, something we both love!   Intense learning times were followed by an episode of SpongeBob  with some popcorn and Diet Pepsi.   It is hard to say who has learned the most, Gavin or his Nonna?

I love you, Gavin-ators!    I love that people at Wal-Mart say, “Oh you have red hair just like your grandma,” and I accept the comment knowing it is really from the OTHER grandma, and in reality, I am trying to have red hair just like YOU!   I love that you told people, “Nonna is a good teacher,” and I have no idea where you’d get something like that except that I hope it was mirroring me telling you, “Gavin, you are such a great learner,” which you truly are!   I love that you love learning and safety scissors and glue sticks and discovery.

You had a Transformers birthday party which was so apprpriate because, little boy-YOU have TRANSFORMED my life!   You ARE a Transformer!

I love you, Gavin, forever and always and I’ll miss you when you go to Kindergarten!…Nonna

NOTE TO SELF: When I told Gavin that his going to school would leave a huge void, he advised me, “You can have me over for dinner.”   Do that!   Often!!

pictured: Gavin loves his sisters! Gavin (2)  with Guini; Gavin (almost 4) with Gemma; Gavin as a dinosaur last fall; Gavin at “pre-school”

Gem-gem-jareee!   How is it possible that you were born a year ago today?   We waited anxiously for you back then…and waited…and waited…and when finally you arrived, well after your “due date,” we saw you were worth it!

Right  away you drew us in with your tiny, delicate features and little halo of fine, wispy red hair.   What a good-natured and joyful  little girl you have been.   Weren’t you just a newborn yesterday?   Didn’t you just start holding your head up during tummy-time?   Didn’t I only recently get thrilled to watch you sitting up to play with no support?   It was only moments ago, wasn’t it, that you started climbing my stairs and making me lose my breath!?   My main and most-treasured memory of you this past year is the ready smile and twinkling eyes I have enjoyed every single time I have seen you.   You’re a smile bringer, Gemma May!  

Recently, though, just after you first became mobile as a speed-crawler and have now started  toddling on those two tiny feet, oh the little girl I see emerging!!!   Wowzer!   I see ornery behind those clear blue eyes.   I see a little trickster getting ready to delight us all with her antics.   You are strong and sassy,  you are easily pleased and opinionated under that thickening garland of red.  

Every new tooth (with that  happy, wide-open smile)  brings a few new words and makes the joy bells of my heart ring madly!  

My favorite Gemma game is kiss-kiss.   And sweet baby girl, you have let me smother your cheeks with kisses, snuggling close and graced me with thousands of your sugar-sweet pecks over the past year.   I am looking to a lifetime more.   I hope we’ll always get to be partners in crime and that you’ll let me tag along on your mischievious adventures to come!

I love you, baby girl…Nonna

NOTE TO SELF: Put everything waaaay up high again, as a new little Kelley kid can reach everything!

See Steph's birthday post from last year here.

Happy Birthday, sweet Stephanie, amazing mommy, faithful wife and thoughtful daughter.  Happy Birthday, gentle spirit, sometimes hidden, but always breaking through in brilliant rainbow-colored prisms of light.  Happy happy days to you, my second-born who came to us so fragile, but stands on her own two feet now as a woman of faith and strength and patience and contentment.  The favor force of God's grace and healing power rest on you, Stephanie.  You are surrounded in His blessing by your husband (and his heart can safely trust in you) and the 3 precious gifts straight from God: Gavin, Guini and Gemma and the rest of your family who loves you.

When you were born too early all those years ago and they whisked you away to another city for the intensive care you would need and I didn't get to hold you before you left, but could only touch your tiny hand through a small opening in an aparatus full of tubing and wires, I wish I'd known so much more, wish I'd been bolder.  How I wish I'd have had the voice to say, "Give me my baby to hold – it will help her."  They know so much more now, that the holding is key, but in their effort to keep you free of germs and to help you breathe, we were kept apart: me in one hospital, you in another.  We lost some very important days.  And so maybe in the deep places of your heart you may still wonder, "Will my mom be there for me?"  And maybe because of that early experience you'll sometimes wonder if you are all alone in the world and where I am and if you really can count on anyone?  And I hope you will know you can.  Because I really know that sometimes I have been absent and busy and unreachable, but you have stuck it out and I want to be faithful to you in being a mom you can count on, because you are such a joy and so worth my full attention. 

And so these are the gifts I am praying you will unwrap this year:

Ability to receive the hugs and touches and holding you didn't get your first few days of life now.  You are sweet and sassy; you are gifted and independent, not given to emotional outburst, but steady and dependable.  But inside your big, generous heart deep, loving waters flow, yet sometimes I sense your trepidation in being on the receiving end.  But girl, I have the strong need to make up for lost time and the days I didn't get to hold you.  I hope you can receive it now and know that I am holding your heart with great care and I see the tender, tiny baby girl inside you still and I am watching out for her in prayer and no one can tear me away now!  I am so glad I am your mom.

Courage to sing again.  Those little undeveloped lungs from May 21, 1982 – wow!  They have changed.  They have been filled with the life-breath of God and from your earliest days, the song of the Lord!  And so, you've had a break from the public singing (the babies needed you), but I hear the song rising in you again.  Even last night, the sound of the prophetic song came from inside you and filled the air and the anointing and call of God on you was again so apparent.  And in that moment, I was just so proud of you – for spending time in the secret place, just you and God so that when the time is right, your heart is full and ready to minister. So sing, Stephie.  It is for the Lord.  You were born to sing for Him.  But I love the sound of your song, too.

The rewards of your faithfulness.  You were a teen-age bride.  I could not believe you married at 19 and I would not recommend it to anyone else, but you married so well.  And you have walked faithfully in that role.  You and Tris are mature beyond your years, working hard, serving God, ministering hand-in-hand, raising those babies for God.  You make good, sound choices and decisions.  You are steady and faithful.  And God sees what is done in secret.  He is watching you live your life well and true before Him.  And He will reward you openly.

A glimpse of the miraculousness of your life.  I believe that the enemy tried to stop you at your birth, like he tries to wipe out all miracles at the very beginning (think Moses, think Jesus – death decrees made, but they were saved).  So I believe the fact that you fought to live and thrived and defied the odds says something of yor character, but also that God has great things in mind for you.  Your life is a miracle, every single day.  And you were born to make an impact.  You already have, but I also look forward to what is in store!  I am so glad to get to be near you as your part in God's story unfolds!

I am so proud of the woman you are, Stephanie.  You are light-years beyond where I was at your age.  You are an amazing wife, mother, daughter, sister.  We're only just beginning to grasp what a gift you are!  I bless the day you were born, scary as it was at the time, I should have known it would bring so much good!

I am pleased with the way you have turned out.  I am so blessed to be your mom, my little preemie…MOM

NOTE TO SELF: Follow Steph's example of gentleness, patience.