Yes, today is my birthday. My 46th birthday. I know that alot of people don't want to admit their age but I'm proud of every year!
And I love to celebrate my birthday. To rejoice in another year of life. To spend a day doing something fun, taking a break from "normal" to go out and wander and give myself a little space to think and look back and to give thanks for another year of LIFE. To be amazed that God loves me and some pretty special people do too. To spend a few moments acknowledging the fact that God made ME and he made ME on purpose and he made ME as I am - with my looks, my personality, my gifts and talents and abilities.
What a wonder it is to actually celebrate that! As I get older, this becomes more and more important to me - that I become at peace with myself and who I am and understand how God can use even me. I am just now becoming accepting of myself. I spent years fighting who I was and lamenting "me"- always wanting to be something I am not - longing to be more beautiful, more talented, quieter, less sensitive, whatever! It's taken me at LEAST 46 years to be able to say with the psalmist David,
"I praise you for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well." (Psalm 139:14)
My birthday gives me a day every year to remember this, a truth that is sometimes hard to keep sight of in the grind - and disappointments - of daily life. We are so often told what we "should" be like - or shouldn't be like - that we often fail to see the beauty in how God created each one of us. Our quirkiness and individuality and unique abilities and perspectives show what an astoundingly creative God we have.
So today is my birthday. And today I will stop to thank God that I am loved. I will stop and remember that I AM special, no matter what others tell me. I will be glad that - somehow - God uses me.
Me! An opinionated, creative, tender-hearted, sensitive, talkative woman from Alabama who thinks too deeply, feels everything to the core of my being, and dreams big dreams and loves people.
Happy Birthday to me!
(Since today is my birthday, leave a comment with one (nice!) word you'd use to describe me! That will be a fun gift!)
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