My seventh birthday is probably my most memorable birthday ever. But it’s highly memorable… for all the wrong reasons.
I grew up in a military home. My dad was in the Army, which meant we usually moved every two or three years. There was a fun side to that. We got to see different areas of the country. We lived in North Carolina, Virginia, Tennessee, and Rhode Island. We even spent two years living in South Korea. Each place came with its own advantages and adventures.
But there were also downsides. Getting to make new friends when we moved to a new place also meant saying goodbye to old friends in the place we were leaving. And moving… is never easy.
Well, it just so happened that one of those moves—our move from Virginia to Tennessee—happened right around the time of my seventh birthday.
We have a great Christmas that year. Our time in Virginia is done, all our belongings are packed up. The movers take them on to Tennessee to wait for us and we spend Christmas with family up in New England. We have a nice long vacation. We get to enjoy the snow, sledding and having snowball fights to our heart’s content.
But as late January approaches, it’s time for our vacation to be over. It’s time to make the long trek to our new home in Tennessee.
Since we left our second vehicle in Virginia, we drive south and pick it up before turning towards Tennessee. Here were are—my parents and five of us kids—a caravan of modern pioneers heading west. What an adventure!
But things quickly start to get ugly. If you have two vehicles full of kids and a long trip ahead of you, there is a list of things you hope won’t happen. On this particular trip, one of those things happens. We kids start throwing up.
Dad is driving one vehicle and Mom is driving the other. They only have one cell phone between the two of them, so they have to use walkie-talkies to let each other know every time another one of the kids has lost their lunch.
It’s a nightmare. We’re miserable because we feel bad. My parents are miserable because they have to keep stopping and cleaning up vomit. It’s a long, grueling drive.
Somehow, we make it to Clarksville, Tennessee. But the saga isn’t over.
My dad planned ahead. Knowing our military housing probably wouldn’t be ready when we got there, my dad booked us a room in the Army guest house. But, just days before our arrival, a tornado ripped through Clarksville, TN, destroying and damaging buildings and knocking out power for 25,000 people. Among the buildings affected was the Army guest house.
So, we’re sick, we’re tired, and… we don’t have a place to stay.
Because of all the people without power, most of the hotels in Clarksville are full. We end up in one of the few hotels that still has rooms—the Ramada Limited. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not a complete dump, but it certainly isn’t ideal. It’s a motel-style hotel with doors that open to the outside. And the name is accurate. It’s… limited. We get adjoining rooms, but they’re pretty small and there’s no kitchen, which means we’ll have to live off of fast food. Our house isn’t ready yet, so we’re stuck—a family of seven in a mediocre hotel—for who knows how long.
Then… my birthday comes along.
Nobody feels like celebrating, least of all me. I’m sick as a dog and I spend the day throwing up and lying in bed. Happy Birthday to me.
This is not my kind of adventure.
The next day is Sunday and I lie in bed all day while the family members who are feeling well enough go visit a church in the area.
For over a week, we call the Ramada Limited home while we wait for our house to be ready. Once I get to feeling better, we have a little birthday celebration in our hotel. I get some gifts, including a new set of markers. We also have a cake and my parents get my favorite—ice cream cake. Problem is, the only cutting utensil in our hotel room is a disposable plastic knife.
The cake does not yield easily.
I use my new markers to draw a picture of myself with all my presents. I give myself a frowny face and color my face green.
Finally, we get to move into our new house, which serves as its own kind of disappointment. Despite the size of our family, the Army decided to cram us all into half of a duplex.
I’ve started to see that move from my parents’ perspective. On some level, they must have felt like they failed us. They failed to give us a smooth transition to our new home. They failed to give me a pleasant birthday. They failed to get a place to live that was big enough for our growing family.
But when I was a kid, I didn’t think about any of that. For me, it really was just a crazy new adventure. It wasn’t fun to live through, but my memory of my seventh birthday isn’t a sad memory. It’s sweet.
What do you remember from your childhood? I remember selling lemonade from a mix at yard sales out in front of our house in Virginia. I remember playing wiffleball in my grandparents’ backyard in Massachusetts. I remember pretending to be Civil War soldiers in the field behind our house in Tennessee. I remember building a snow igloo in our yard in Rhode Island. I remember hundreds of experiences and those memories are pleasant memories.
I had a good childhood.
But it wasn’t because my parents managed to make every experience the best it could be. I was sad when we moved away from Tennessee. I was a little nervous when we moved to South Korea. My parents never took us to Disney World. We never saw the Grand Canyon. I didn’t even have a Nintendo. They didn’t buy me a lot of the toys I wanted and sometimes they fed me food I didn’t like.
But I had a good childhood.
Because fun experiences aren’t what makes a good childhood. It’s the everyday love and godly investment of parents who love the Lord.
Scripture never tells parents to make sure their kids have fun, but it does tell us to “Train up a child in the way he should go” (Proverbs 22:6) and to “bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.” (Ephesians 6:4)
It’s easy, as parents, to focus on whether we are giving our children a fun life. We want to protect them from suffering; we want to keep them satisfied; we want to give them good gifts. And there’s nothing wrong with wanting to show our children love and care in tangible ways.
But our job isn’t to give our children an exciting adventure. Our job is to give them consistent love and truth, to guide and discipline them, and to prepare them to live life God’s way.
The very saddest childhood is one that is full of fun, gifts, and exciting experiences with parents who are distracted or dismissive.
There has never been a perfect parent. None of us will ever get it all right. It’s by God’s grace that any child grows up to be a mature, God-honoring adult. But we need to have the right benchmark. Our primary goal for our children must not be entertainment, excitement, or ease. We should be striving to take our kids by the hand and lovingly guide them according to the truth of God’s Word.
I think that’s why my memory of my seventh birthday is happy, not sad. Because even though the experience was miserable, it was an experience we went through together as a family. And sure my parents were limited in what they could do to make it fun, but they were there, trying their best to guide our family in a loving and God-honoring way.
I can’t protect my kids from everything, but I can be there for them and I can be the one who speaks the truth of God into their lives.
And I think that’s a much better gift than the best birthday ever.
Learn More
About the tornado in Clarksville, TN (weather.gov)
Exempla 