Birthday Blessings

Since yesterday was my birthday, I have been contemplating them. Isn’t it fun that we can all celebrate the day that we were born! We can have a day that is almost all our own, unlike other holidays when we have to share it with others.

In our early years we cannot wait for each birthday to arrive so we can be older, in fact, we often times said things like, “I am five and a half” to make us seem older. Then as we get older we don’t really want to have anymore birthdays or at least we don’t really want people to tell people our real age. However, I do have a friend that is quite clever. She will add 5 years to her real age and then people respond with, “You look great for your age.”

There are the monumental birthdays. At ten you get to be in double digits. Thirteen is an exciting one since you become a teenager. (Personally I’m not sure it’s all it is cracked up to be. Have you considered all of the things that happen during those years? Peer pressure, pimples and puberty) “Sweet sixteen and never been kissed” might be a bit out of date today, but it is still a special year…after all you get to have the keys to freedom by getting your drivers license in most states. You become an adult at eighteen, well almost. You don’t yet have the right to drink alcoholic beverages, which is what makes the age of twenty-one the magical year for many.

From there some people think it is downhill—the thirties, you are raising babies, the forties you are trying to make a million, the fifties you are yearning for retirement, the sixties you are regretting spending so much time at work instead of on things more important, the seventies you are longing to be able to work like you used to, the eighties you are wishing you had taken better care of your body, the nineties you are just glad when you get up every morning and at one hundred, I imagine you are just thinking about the good old days, if you can remember them.

I personally think that each and every year is precious and should be cherished. Everyone’s birthday is a gift from God and has purpose and meaning. We should enjoy every stage of our lives, not looking back to the good old days too frequently or looking to the future in anticipation of what might be. Today is what is important, so what will you do with it?

By the way, my birthday was special with so many people calling, emailing, sending cards, posting on Facebook and giving gifts. It was also fun because I got to speak forth God’s Word at Bible study. But perhaps the best part of the day was that I was surprised to find out that I was not as old as I thought—I am only 57, not 58. (But who is counting? Age is only a number—I feel 35!)

Job 8:8-9 "Ask the former generations and find out what their fathers learned, for we were born only yesterday and know nothing, and our days on earth are but a shadow.”

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