We’ve had some fun birthday celebrations recently since Ruby and Stella have birthdays within a month of each other. Stella is at the age where birthdays are highly anticipated and at this point, Ruby gets excited just because Stella does. Since Stella-girl turned 5, it was an extra-special year because she had her first friend party. We decided awhile back that friend parties won’t happen every year – maybe every 4 years or so – so we did it up a little bigger than other years.
Some months ago we started listening to this CD which quickly became one of our favorite children’s music CDs. We love that the words feed our souls (“You are always caring, You are never cruel, even when You see me doing wrong” – how long did it take me to get that wonderful truth right about God’s character?! And I still need reminded of it!) as well as keeping the Gospel before our kids in a memorable way at this stage of their lives.
When birthday season approached, I knew I wanted to use the phrase that’s the title of this blog entry (from the song “Nothing Better than Jesus” on the CD mentioned above) in an effort to help Stella see the all-surpassing greatness of Jesus, even at a time when she’s surrounded by great things – like birthday presents!!
We tried to think of a few ways to communicate this to her and came up with two to focus on this year. We can show that Jesus is better than presents and birthdays by:
1) Loving the people at the party more than the presents (showing love and thankfulness even if she didn’t get a gift or got something that wasn’t her favorite)
2) Seeing the party as a fun opportunity to lay a strong foundation for godly friendship in the future (God placed these friends in her life for a reason and Lord willing this is only the beginning of the many years they’ll spend learning about Jesus, trusting Him as Savior, encouraging each other to love and good works and resisting temptation together)
We didn’t navigate through the parties perfectly by any means (just ask the family and friends who were here!) but we’re thankful for the opportunities God gives us to teach our kids about Him and His greatness. It’s in those opportunities that we can really teach them application of His Word. God has blessed us with such good teaching and yet how little we apply! I’m thankful that we don’t have to wait until next birthday season to keep working on application. Those opportunities are around the Owen household in abundance every day!
Some pictures of the fun celebrations:
“Sweet as can Bee” party with our family
Strawberry Shortcake Tea Party with friends
playing “Rotten Strawberry” (aka “Hot Potato”)
strawberry bow favors done by our talented friend Sandra
A Museum of Memories 
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