When I Blow Out My Candles On Friday...

It's the eve of my 29th birthday. The real 29th one...not like the ones you repeat after you hit 40.  It might just be my personality, or it might just be human nature...to reflect when you come to a milestone. But this birthday, just seems to be mundane. It's actually one I don't really want to celebrate. I kinda wish I could just sleep thru it, because I get to go to a wedding on the day after it. This birthday, as I reflect, I see things gained and things lost. Things broken and things restored. But mostly lost and broken.  Last year at my birthday, I was celebrating many things gained. This year, I feel like I've had on funeral clothes.

As fairytale-esque as it would be to paint a pretty picture of beautiful relationships, leaves changing color, football hoodies and hot chocolate in this, my most favorite season of the year, I have found myself shutting my eyes tighter and tighter, begging God to hurry up to the next season. Because maybe at least then...things around me would be different.

I began the summer season with a death, my grandpa. And since then, have seen death come to many facets of my life. Dreams, hopes, relationships, ideas, expectations. Just to name a few. And I wish I could say that after these last 6 months of being broken that things are finally looking up and not so broken, I have dared to open my eyes just enough to see...that things are still just as dead as they started.

I have cast hope and expectation onto the Lord. I have believed in the face of helplessness. I have hoped in the face of hopelessness. I have stayed in the wind and waves and rain, trusting that God was hearing me in the midst of pain & regret. And I know he has indeed heard me. He has brought me thru the most painful hell I have walked thru in my life and I am better for it. But when what you sense is not what you see...and you live in hope but your reality is defeat...what do you do?  I'm not really sure. The best answer I have is to just keep on believing.

"What do you want for your birthday?" I've been asked. Well, the things I want can't really be written down on paper. They have been etched on my heart, they can't be bought with any kind of currency.
They aren't material things, they are things that mean far more than jewelry, or something wrapped up pretty in a bow. They are soul things. They are things loved & hoped for.

On this birthday, I don't want things for me, I want things for others. The peace and restoration that God has brought back into my life with greater power and purpose are things I want for others. And if it were at all possible, I would rip them out of me and give them to the people I love the most in a second. But since that isn't possible, I will just continue to hope, believe, trust and love.

For my birthday, I just want Jesus to bring the dead things back to life. Oh. And a tattoo.