first birthday

Today is my friend Lee's 38th birthday. I met Lee a few months ago when he began visiting our church and the "young professionals" class with his friend John (who teaches our class). Lee's life has been drastically different from most of ours in our class. His birthday was not celebrated with cake and balloons every year like mine was. He didn't know the love and acceptance of any kind of family. For twenty years and seven months, Lee lived on the streets of Memphis. Thankfully, he's been in his apartment for a little over a year now. In September, Lee made the decision to give his life to Christ, and we celebrated his rebirth (more on that here and here). Yesterday we celebrated his original birth.

Yesterday morning, instead of having our normal Bible class during class time, we had Lee's first birthday party. We had breakfast foods, cake, balloons, presents, and more people than we had seats. A good time was had by all, especially the birthday boy. After the cake and presents, Lee shared with us how overwhelmed he's been by the love that's been shown to him recently, telling us that he's never known love like this before. He told us, "Before I always just existed. Now I exist in a family."

Though there was no "official" Bible lesson yesterday, I think we all learned more about the love of Jesus than we would have if we'd read the Bible for the entire hour. Thanks, Lee. And happy birthday. How blessed we are to have you in our family.