Coastal South Carolina: Celebrating a Birthday!

Slice of Life Day 27 of 31: Journeys (my March theme)

Today my son turns 33. He’s my middle child of my octane trio, born in the years 87, 89, and 93 – the gas pump years. Today, we celebrate his annual journey around the sun.

As a child, he wore his cowboy boots on the wrong feet and rarely took them off. He played with his toy horses for hours on end and was our little hoot owl who almost never slept. He rode his horse Slick in the Bluffton Christmas parade each year, sporting his chaps. And after long days of camping trail rides with his grandparents, he’d return to camp to barrel race.

He is not a connoisseur of foods outside the mainstream menu, once threatening to turn us in to the captain of a ship when he found out he had eaten a piece of octopus we had put on his plate.

My son is an athlete – a soccer player turned runner whose sport took him through college to meet the woman of his dreams. He married her on a mountaintop in Sevierville, Tennessee, under an arbor her father made from the trees on that land. Her grandfather and his grandfather, both pastors, tied the knot extra-tight. Three labs and four children later, they live a stunningly beautiful but simple life on the marsh in South Carolina, kayaking and fishing and spending time together in ways that matter. He builds houses, but knows the difference between a house and a home and makes his family his priority.

He once called me to ask my favorite Bible verse. “Hebrews 11:1,” I told him – “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

A few days later, he sent me a picture of his tattoo that says “Faith.” He is the last of my trio to be inked.

I’m so proud of him, of them. Behind every good man is an amazing woman – and oh, we are so richly blessed by her. She is beautiful inside and out, and we stand with her today as we celebrate our Marshall. Happy birthday, Son!

Hebrews 11:1 

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Psalm 127:3-5 

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.