This year I celebrate another birthday. I hate to say it, but this is getting rather monotonous. Every year I celebrate my birthday. Of course, when the year comes around with no birthday to celebrate everybody will know what has happened. 

The only thing I am wrestling with is which birthday am I going to celebrate? I have so many from which to choose, it is hard to really pick out the birthday I want to celebrate.

Some people like to pick the newest birthday to celebrate. I, on the other hand, believe that since it is my birthday, I have the option and right to pick which birthday I am going to celebrate.

It will take me several months to decide, so I need to get started now to pick out which birthday to celebrate.

In thinking this matter over, I have been tempted to celebrate my first birthday because I have no memories of that birthday whatsoever. I am not sure my parents could afford a camera, because there are no pictures of that first birthday. It is rather sad, but I think I can change that.

To celebrate my first birthday would be a rather awesome thing. The first birthday is celebrating the beginning of your life. However, the thing that makes it somewhat crazy is, at that time in life you do not know what to think about as far as life is concerned. After all, being only one year old does not give much time to contemplate what the world is all about. There is a certain degree of innocence in a one year old that fast fades as birthdays come and go.

As I think about celebrating my first birthday, I thought about sitting on the floor in diapers, drooling, while everybody is singing happy birthday to me. That picture kinda cancels any desire I have to celebrate my first birthday.

Then I thought about celebrating my 100^thbirthday. That would be awesome. I may not be around when I am 100years old and even if I was around at that time, I may not know what is going on around me. Now that would be the perfect time to celebrate.

Then another disturbing thought entered my head. Just like my first birthday on my 100^thbirthday, I could be sitting on the floor in diapers, drooling, while everybody around me is singing happy birthday. I do not think we want to go there.

Before I can make any real decisions along this line, I think I am going to have to take a little nap.

As I was taking my nap and just before I slipped off into la-la land, I thought about how old I really am. I am old enough so that I can take a nap in the afternoon without anyone thinking anything negative about it. If that is not something to celebrate, I don’t know what is.

If I am going to celebrate my birthday, whichever one I choose, I will have as the focus of that celebration the wonderful privilege of taking naps. The older I get, the more accommodating an afternoon nap really is. That’s worth celebrating.

I can remember when younger, if caught taking a nap people made fun of me. “What’s the matter with you,” people would say as they pointed laughing in my direction.

To tell them I was just taking a nap did not do anything for my reputation.

Now, the situation is completely changed. I can have a nap in the morning and then another one in the afternoon and then, believe it or not, I can take a nap just before I go to bed for the night.

I feel sorry for those people who are not able to sleep at night. I am definitely not one of them. Sleep has not been a hobby to me; it is a full-time occupation I have mastered.

I am not quite sure how old I was when my parents taught me a little prayer for when you go to bed. It began, “Now I lay me down to sleep.” If only I could remember how old I was when I learned that, I would celebrate that birthday.

Nothing has been more beneficial to me than being able to say, “Now I lay me down to sleep,” regardless of the time of day. What a wonderful thing it is to be able to sleep and not be harassed by “well-meaning friends” who just don’t get it.

I have not come to any conclusion about which birthday to celebrate this year, but I do plan to celebrate this whole idea concerning sleep.

When I was very young, I would fall asleep whenever and not think anything of it. As I got older, it became embarrassing for someone to catch me napping. Then, I passed a certain milestone in life; I do not know which milestone it was, where I am not embarrassed anymore for anybody catching me asleep.

I think that is what I am celebrating this year. At my birthday party, right after the cake, everyone will join me in taking a nap.

David understood the importance asleep when he wrote, “It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2).

What puts you to sleep is a good indication of what kind of person you are.