12.15.2006

CHRISTmas What??

What is it about Jesus' birthday that gets us so wound up? We spend the weeks prior to His big day all frantic about whether or not everyone we know and have known for the past two decades gets a reminder card about His party. But I'm pretty sure everyone already knows because stores start reminding us in September and everywhere we look there are clowns dressed up in their red and white outfits and snowmen saluting the babe from the front lawn. Yeah, I'm pretty sure even those who don't get a reminder card that says you're thinking of them will be able to celebrate His birthday just fine without it. So why do we worry so much about the preparations and gifts and food. I doubt a kid born in a barn is concerned with the placement of your tall green birthday shrine or the arrangement of the lights and ornaments you hang on it. I bet He'd be happy you remembered His birthday at all. You did remember Jesus' birthday right?

12.14.2006

The Big 2-8

Okay, so 28 isn't 30, but it certainly isn't 20 and definitely isn't 16. I turn 28 in a couple of weeks and all I can think is, "Thank God". I love getting older. Every addition of a year brings a new confidence; a new discovery about myself or a fresh attitude that I think is quite lovely. I know some of you well beyond my age are probably thinkin', "Gosh, you're going on about your age and you're not even 30 yet? Come on, wait til' you've lived a little before you go on about how great your life is or isn't. How dare you talk about how old 28 seems when you're still a baby." You might not talk exactly like that, but the general thoughts are the same. I know because I've heard it before. Only I'm honestly not complaining about my age by saying I'm NOT complaining about my age.

I sincerely enjoy every year better than the one before. What I gain in a number is always complimented with a tasty bit of awakening in my spirit. I would love to find the person who said high school was supposed to be the best years of our lives and just laugh at them. Well, that wouldn't be nice, I'd probably feel sorry for them first, then laugh behind their back like a good girl. You couldn't get me to go back to those awkward teenage years even if I could bring my body back with me. I was confused, angry, hormonally dysfunctional, and plain ol' unhappy. No way would I go back to those chemically unbalanced years just to erase some embarrassments. Those moments of humiliation made me who I am today and I really like me. The cloudiness of confusion had been cleared with purpose and now when I get angry, I get angry. I don't try to hold it in and become resentful or bitter. I put it out there, whether there's an immediate solution or not. At least there's an immediate release of tension I can let go of so I have a free hand to hold on to something else, like hope and calmness and yes, even tears. Sometimes embracing those little, sometimes very large, eye droppings, (because lets face it, that's what crying is, releasing all those toxic, crummy feelings and emotions through the most sanitary hole possible) is the most freeing sensation in moments of despair.

As far as hormonally dysfunctional, well, I would have to say that I haven't found balance in that area yet, but God is doin' His thing and I'm okay with that...now anyway. At first I struggled with not having everything I wanted when I wanted it. I desperately wanted to have children by now, but I was following my time frame, not God's. He knows the desires of my heart, hello, He gave em' to me, but He also knows a gazillion other things I don't so I've stopped trying to make my life happen and just let it happen. No historical time lines to follow, no socially acceptable time frames to oblige by because this is my life, despite how far I have or have not come. I am not trying to make history or secure some 'Citizens with Reasonable Accomplishment Plans' medal because that would mean crap (literally, I'd be trying to get a C.R.A.P. award). I just want to live my life, one great year at a time, and be in love with the choices I make and the people I make them with along the way. I don't want to live a life of idolatry, making God out to suit me and my beliefs. I just want to live out His best life for me. If I believe I have to have so many children within so many years and by a certain age and so many books published by certain companies by a certain date then I am only as happy as my accomplishments. Not that we can't set goals, we just can't live our life according to them alone, as if they are Holy, and anything less would be unacceptable. If we live like that, then happiness becomes a concept.

It is not enough for me to know the concept of happiness, to know how to have peace and become fulfilled. I want, I must, experience it for myself. I must be happy, be at peace, and be fulfilled. I will let God lead me to the promises of His word and surround me with His peace and joy and love. I will not reject the life God gave me or waste it away with complacency or misery or regret or bitterness. I will genuinely live. I will not have a concept or a theory. I will simply have.