This year I anxiously awaited my birthday. This year was the year I turned 30 and what was welling up inside me wasn't dread but excitement. I've found that most people dread getting older but I find myself feeling quite the opposite. I've always thought that time moving forward meant something new ahead. It's a day closer to what God has yet to reveal in whatever season you are in. This time around, I realized how beautiful Birthdays really are. As I was riding in my sister car I read some birthday greetings I received on my phone and at that moment I was overwhelmed by the Goodness of God.
Birthdays are days where people lavish on you with so much Love, gifts of appreciation words of life and speak identity into you. But it's also a day where hearts are so open to Receiving this kind of outpouring.
"Why did God give us Birthdays" I asked myself.
As I was reading amazing, heart warming messages that filled me to the brim, it hit me. It's a day where the Lord reminds you of how precious you truly are, how he knew you before you were born, how he knit you in your mothers womb, how your life matters and should be celebrated. And He does this through people a lot.
On a day to day basis, this kind of lavishing is so uncommon and it is TRAGIC! We live in a world where love is not easily found, where love is so difficult to give out and where love is to difficult to receive.
The Father is not blind to this and I'm sure this grieves His heart. Because He longs to lavish on us so much. We live in a world where life is hated and not celebrated. Where Love is conditional rather than unconditional. Where people are so broken that only brokenness overflows.
But thank goodness we have a God who doesn't hold back and longs to fill us up with His Rich&Perfect love which overflows out of us, onto others.
This world knows too much hate, pain, mistrust, hurt, betrayal and so much more. How can they know not just a surface kind of Love but a Love that flows deep that it covers a multitude of sin and knows no bounds?
It has to begin with us!
By no means have I perfected this but I certainly believe that Birthdays could be those "where to begin" kinda days. If we take these open doors to "begin" then lets take it a step further and "keep going" then hearts would begin to open. Love would start being received. Lives would begin to change. And people would know the Love of the Father. Then hearts would be filled to the point of OVERFLOW.
I am genuinely grateful for a Family, best friends and church that remind me of the Love of God with the way they lavishly love on me. Stepping into my 30's has been GLORIOUS!!
What if we lived as though EVERDAY WAS EVERYONE'S BIRTHDAY!!!
(I can safely say, we'd never run out of cake hahaha)
Thank you to everyone who celebrated my birthday with me.
Meant more than words can say.
This is 'Walkin With Joy'
MY LIFE AS A MISSIONARY
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