Birthdays, like new years, I kind of love them. There is something about a trip around the sun that makes me reflective and grateful. Two years ago my birthday had a bomb dropped on it and last year I spent trying to forget the pain of the year before but this year, this year I am choosing to see differently. Part of me wants to avoid this year in hopes to not carry over the pain of the last two years but ultimately I am expectant of year 28 in a new and fresh way. I am believing this birthday will be one of redemption and new life.
Back in 2009 I would often turn to Romans 8:28 which says, “We know that all things work together for good of those who love God: those who are called according to His purpose.” This verse has been popping up in my mind more and more the last few weeks and I don’t think it is by chance but instead a promise over my 28th year. The greatest gift giver is going to exchange the ashes of the last couple of years and make it beautiful. He is going to take the fire I have faced to purify and refine me. He won’t leave me alone in the midst of it all.
Life is messy, painful and sometimes downright cruel. It is easy to become consumed by those painful things and not see all of the beauty in a life with God. Things like my oldest wishing me a happy birthday while snuggling up next to me first thing in the morning. Throughout the Bible there are promises not for an easy life but of a fulfilling one, one marked with His goodness and love. If you take the time to look around you, you will without a doubt see His extravagance. For me His love is sometimes the color of the sunset, the random item on sell or my boys telling me a story. Life in and of itself is a gift.
For my birthday I am choosing to look at my life, where I am, albeit messy and painful at times as a gift. My boys, my husband, my life as the greatest gift I could ever have dreamt up. No, things are not perfect and I could probably paint a picture that would garner me great sympathy but if I truly believe what I have confessed all these years about the Christian life, about marriage then I need to change my perspective and see life as a gift, one created to glorify the Creator.
***Awesome Coincidental Gift***
Every year my great-aunt Trudy sends me a birthday card, it arrives like clock work each year almost always the day before my birthday so I can open it the morning of. I don’t remember ever not getting a card. Cards come adorn with stickers and bunches of x’s and o’s on the inside. Well this year it came with a sticker verse but not just any verse….
I just about wept when I saw the sticker on the back. Nothing like a sweet kiss to confirm what I had already been feeling like was the promise over me this year. God is in the details, He cares about the little things, He loves you.
Here’s to my 28th year!
