Birthday Thoughts

Hello cafe friends! I hope you've had a wonderful weekend!

My weekend began on Friday with my birthday. Number 47, to be precise. Some days, I just cannot fathom where the time has gone!  This will be one of those big "marker" years. This summer will mark the twenty-fifth anniversary of my graduation...from college! Yikes!  And this autumn, I will celebrate the twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with my sweet husband.

One of my dear friends from high school also has a February birthday. We keep in contact every year around this time, just to check in on our respective families and crazy busy lives, marvelling at where God has brought us over the years. I confessed to feeling a little bit of panic at the passing of time. Not in a midlife crisis sort of way, but more in a Psalm 90 "Lord, teach me to number my days" sort of way. And then I had to wonder if that is what a midlife crisis looks like after all.

Sometimes, on those days when my mind wanders and I'm feeling in a contemplative mood, I will worry. Not so much about the things I have done, because I have a long list of those things that God has already forgiven, so no need to dwell on the negative! Instead, I worry about the things I have left undone...the words I haven't said, the times I haven't stepped up and stepped out in faith, the days that I have frittered away doing silly useless things.

Perhaps this is what forty-seven feels like.

I can tell you that some days, I feel more like this sweet soul, who just celebrated her 116th birthday.

Now that is a face that makes me smile! She credits her long life to lots of sushi and lots of beauty sleep. Obviously!

"Hmm! Look this good at my age you will not!"

I wonder if she felt this way at age 47,too.

The truth is that we don't know if we have sixty-nine more days or sixty-nine more years. We just have to live in gratitude for the day that God places before us.

Today I am thankful for the things  that I have done and the things God is continuing to do for me. I may be forty-seven years old, but He is making all things new.

It's a good day to be.