Yesterday was my birthday, and I never know quite what to do with it. We've always had a complicated relationship, my birthday and I, and I'm sure you'd say, "Who doesn't?" I know this is true, as there's always some invisible line where birthdays cross from best day ever to again, another year older? My issues are a bit more complex and maybe one day I'll open up the birthday book wide.
Until then, I say (think, feel) this:
I am supremely loved, I know it every day. And for the hard days, or the complicated days, or the days where hurt lingers, I want to embrace and revel in the fact my parents once fell in love and got married and had me and my sister. And that fact is awesome and beautiful and belies nothing else but how God's way is a mystery. A brilliant mystery. And I will rejoice in the mystery, no matter the day.
And my birthday? It was lazy and fun and chaotic and frustrating and all the things that make every day a part of that same mystery. I love being alive. I love my children and the handmade cards and how beautiful birthdays are to them. I love that Asher's birthday is tomorrow and we will celebrate him turning four with friends, an oreo cake, and a new-to-him playhouse (playbarn, really). I love facebook and how I feel like I spent the whole of the day with my family and friends, even if only virtually. I love how Matt goes over the top - not with gifts, but with love and forced-cuddling.
And I love how my dad is the first. Always the first, with a video or a text or a song. My birthday always begins with him. And it always ends with my mother, recounting the memory of the day she became a mother, and how she wouldn't change a thing.
Time can heal. Well, I'd say God and hard work and love, too. But time, another year gone past, brings me - I think, I hope - one step closer to wisdom, to the mystery of Jesus, to grace.
It gets better, every year. I hope I get better, too.
I hope we are all better.
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