Another Eighteen-Year-Old

I cannot believe it. Half my kids 18 and over now?

They're going to have to start paying their own way at museums.


This is B18, taken a few months ago. He certainly looks old enough to pay his own way, doesn't he?

Most of the time, he looks more like this.

Something of the little boy there still, I like to think. This was taken very recently, at our church talent show, while he was singing a song he wrote for his little sister. It was so sweet and special.

The stringed instrument is a semi-permanent appendage.

We couldn't be more proud of the young man he is becoming. Musically, he just keeps improving as a guitarist, a songwriter and a vocalist, and he is so diligent in practicing and in pushing himself creatively. He's also learning and working hard behind-the-scenes, running the sound board for our church most Sundays.

Academically, he is doing well in his classes with the virtual school and also in the college courses he has taken this year. He's a junior, and he's planning a similar combination of high school and college courses next year. He should enter college the following year with at least a semester's worth of credits.

Spiritually, he is so solid. He loves the Lord, our church and his family, and the men he looks up to most are his dad and other men from church. He loves to get up early and do Morning Prayer with his dad.

And he's just an enjoyable kid to be with. Other adults tell me how much they like and enjoy him, and how thankful they are that he's around as a role model for their kids. He really is good with children. He can be like a second father to his younger siblings--encouraging them in their activities, stepping in and backing me up when they are misbehaving. He wants to become a history teacher, so it's good practice for him!

He's also got a great sense of humor. Being at home for school for the past two years has meant that he connects with many friends through social media. He's learned to stay out of the drama, and instead, he has developed an online presence that is witty and humorous. Even our adult friends enjoy his statuses on Facebook, and whole families tell me they watch and laugh at his silly Vines together.

Thank you, Lord, for B18!

A birthday prayer for you, son:

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. 

(2 Peter 1:5-7)