Most years, I spend my birthday doing laundry and school and dishes and cooking and just ordinary living. It's just a day, after all. But this year, I decided to ditch it all and do something, ANYTHING, AWAY from ordinary living. I wanted to celebrate being alive.
(Warning: it gets deep from here... feel free to skip to the pictures)
When Corynn got married and I had to say goodbye to life as I had known it for 20 years, with all my children around me, I thought that might be the hardest year of my life. Before that, Mom being in the hospital was a pretty hard stinking time- but a different kind of hard. The kind of hard that I endured knowing who I was, who God was and who my people were. Saying 'goodbye' to my people, to Corynn, as she had always been and the life we had always had was hard in a tectonic plates shifting kind-of way.
But tectonic plates shifting can still result in a fruitful and beautiful (but different) reality.
This past year, though, has been more a sense of being buried alive. The kind where you truly consider whether scratching your way to the surface is even worth it. Considering if staying buried is the better option. Giving up on life, entirely. My world was rocked, and not in a good way. I despaired. I wanted to die. I wished for it. I wondered if the world would be better off without me, as all my living, all my efforts, my very breath seemed in vain. If I could not shield and protect my children, why was I even here? If this home could not be shielded from the world and sin and misery, what was even the point? I was, and am, a terrible FAILURE. And that was a very hard reality to live with because I truly have tried so hard. In a real way, not living seemed pretty enticing- less painful. If God's plan for my family was so painful, how could I trust that it was for our good and His glory? I wondered if God could even be trusted- I felt that He and His plan had betrayed me.
I was left face to face with the stark reality that though you can believe you are doing 'everything right'- you can be shielding and protecting and preventing and teaching and living- we can homeschool and we can worship regularly and read the bible and we can refuse video games and cellphones and TV every night and take care with relationships... but in so doing, my eyes were always fixed on ME. What I was doing. What I was protecting. What I was preserving. The fact is, we all fail miserably at doing everything right.
We are sinners. All have sinned and FALL SHORT OF THE GLORY OF GOD. (Romans 3:23)
I have always known I am a sinner. I am very aware of that. But somewhere along the way, I had forgotten that the God of the universe didn't need me to do everything right. He didn't need me to sustain or preserve or protect. I had forgotten that I wasn't in control and it wasn't all up to me. In fact, I am utterly powerless.
And that is where the glory comes in. His Glory shines when I recognize that HE is God and not me. That HE is ruler of the world, NOT ME. That HE is in control, not me.
And that is where the good comes in too. It is GOOD for me to not lie to myself that I am doing everything right. It is good to know that I (and all who I hold dear) are wholly dependent on the mercies of God and the grace that HE bestows. Not ME. I was proud... and we are called to be humble. I was lying to myself... and we are called to be truthful. I thought I was strong, I thought I was wise, I thought I was in control... I thought wrong. All is vanity.
This past year and all the pain and all the screaming at God and questioning and crying was worth it to have my eyes opened to this. Have I overcome? Nope. But I have been given more days to trust. To do right. To be comforted. To be faithful. To tell the truth. To see God bringing about glory through suffering. To declare and know God to be omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent.
And so you can see how I needed to celebrate this year. I needed it desperately. With the Lord's faithful support, I overcame my desire to die and I was given a greater desire to die to self.
On the morning of my birthday, I told the people at home that I was going to go on a special adventure. No school, no laundry, no ordinary. They could come if they wanted. (They wanted.) Corynn happened to call that morning to wish me a happy birthday and SHE wanted too. ;-)
We packed a picnic lunch and headed to Buttermilk Falls for a hike. To celebrate "just another day", just another year, that the Lord has given me, at the tail end of a year where I wished for none.
Thank you, Lord.
Corynn is about 16 weeks pregnant here (?) and looks like she *might* have just eaten a big breakfast. But how fun to see the teeny little Pipsqueak belly start to pop!
Oof. I've been discovered.
Ineke shows me just how she feels about THAT.
Me, at 43.
"Look Mama! We are gonna fall off the wall! We can't hold on any longer! Ahhhhhhh"
If they think they can terrify me with faces like these... they need to go back to acting school.
It was a sweet, sweet time. Enjoying waterfalls and roots. Ferns and dappled sunshine. Breeze. Barefeet. Legs walking up a million steps. Rest breaks because I am now an old person with bad feet and knees. Laughter. Chatter. Fresh air. Surrounded by my people. And glory. And goodness.
And me, taking it all in. SEEING it. Taking time to notice a world, a life, full of gifts. (Which I don't do often enough.)
After exhausting ourselves with a hike, Adele' and Corynn drove home with the Littles and I met up with Matt for a dinner date at a new (and delicious!) place.
And I got home to find a most delicious secret birthday wish come true- a cheesecake just for me made by Corynn!
I ate it in the flower circle as the sun was setting, dining with a hummingbird greedily slurping nectar from the flowers around me.
It couldn't have been a better day.
I don't know if future birthdays will include dinner dates with Matt or delicious cheesecakes, but I know that from now on, they will ALWAYS include special adventures of NOTICING the Lord's goodness.
And the celebration of another year to do it.
Because Chesterton was right, it is a good thing to be alive.
