The Official Writing Challenge
BACK TO
CHALLENGE
MAIN
INSTRUCTIONS
how it works
submission rules
guidelines for
choosing a level
ENTRIES
submit your entry
read current entries
read past entries
challenge winners
Our Daily Devotional HERE
Place it on your site or
receive it daily by email.


TRUST JESUS TODAY

  • Share
  • how it works
  • Submit
Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: birthday (05/23/05)
He has been perfecting his wish list and collecting names to print on the invitations. His birthday is four month from now, but you can’t tell him that. Everyday is a planning opportunity for him.

“Where are we having my party?” Nicholas asks on a regular basis. At the age of six, he can’t help but obsess about the biggest day of the year. Christmas comes a close second, but it is a day for us to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Even though we see most of our family and friends and exchange presents on Christmas, everyone isn’t gathered together strictly for Nicholas’ sake.

His birthday is special because it is the one day of the year that all of his friends and family gather just for him. It is a celebration of his favorite things. He rips open his presents, inhales some cake, plays with friends, and eats his favorite foods off of character plates.

As a parent, pulling off one of these parties is costly and exhausting. It takes a lot of preparation, time and money. Much like planning a wedding, we start early to find the right location, provide the perfect mix of foods, choose a theme, and send out guest invitations. That’s not to mention the cleanup time involved.

But for me, it is a time to reflect on the good times I have shared with him. I realize how fast my son is growing up. I get a little sad that he is no longer my “baby” and he is quickly gaining independence. I recall the day he was born. The pride I felt that day is still as fresh for me now.

While Nicholas gets caught up in the excitement now, I hope that as he gets older he will be able to look back on his birthday memories as the good days too.
The opinions expressed by authors may not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.
If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be right now. CLICK HERE

JOIN US at FaithWriters for Free. Grow as a Writer and Spread the Gospel.
This article has been read 774 times
Member Comments
Member
Date
dub W
06/03/05
A nice little thought. Try proofing your article in preview before posting.
Deborah Porter 
06/07/05
Tracy, this was so sweet. As a Mum with two young adult children now, those childhood birthday memories are very precious.

Anyway, I made a note when you submitted your entry to let you know what may have caused the problems with your formatting. Sometimes when we upload (or sometimes even copy and paste) a file from Word or something similar, the formatting in that doesn't translate well. So to avoid that it's best to save your file in plain text and then either uploading that, or else copying and pasting it from that into the submission box.

If you preview your piece before submitting it and see formatting problems, it's a simple case of going back to the submission box and typing over the places where the problem occurs. You'll find that it usually hits things like apostrophes, quotation marks and hyphens.

Hope that helps. Love, Deb (Challenge Coordinator)