Feliz Cumpleanos!

1 Corinthians 3:18-23

Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness," and again, "The Lord knows the thoughts of the wise, that they are futile." So let no one boast in men. For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future—all are yours, and you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.

1 Corinthians 3:10-15

According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

So much to celebrate in so little time! After arriving home on Sunday, we celebrated our first day of school on Tuesday but more importantly, we celebrated our oldest son's 16th birthday!

Crazy, I know! I'm certain that he thinks it is crazy, too. There are not many kids who start over again with a new family just days before their 16th birthday.

It is hard to comprehend by the world's standards for wisdom, security, safety, and normalcy why we would want to adopt two much older kiddos. Again. And yet, we are absolutely crazy about these teenagers and we have this love for them that a typical world-view simply cannot explain. In fact, the more clearly we have seen our own sin and God's great grace and love for us, the more we have desired to be merciful and loving to our children, falling head-over-heals for all of them, so thankful for God's sovereign grace in bringing them to our home and family.

We have a lot to learn about parenting a 16 year-old. I am thankful for grace. Abundant grace. And I'm thankful for Hugo. He's a great kid, um, young man. He's eager to learn, bright, funny, quiet, sweet to the Little Ones, and an incredible soccer whiz. Together, with Hugo, we have 16 years of history to unpack and work through. Thankfully, we don't have to face this with fear or worry, because we trust the sovereignty of God in ordaining all of history, even the hard parts. (See Job.)

We are thankful for the opportunity to build upon the foundation of Jesus Christ in your life, Hugo, and we pray that our work in your life would be the kind that survives the testing of fire. Happy 16th Birthday!