Birthday Blah Blah Blog

Yes, today is my birthday. Please no fanfare. It will only annoy me further. I try not to look forward to things like birthdays, holidays.....special days. But I do. I can't help myself. My husband, on the other hand, claims "It's just another day" and acts like he really believes that. I think he is still recovering from the big surprise party I threw for his 40th. He has trouble admitting he was blessed, but I saw him having fun.

So yea, today is my big day. Hoorah. Hubby got up, turned off the alarm and got back into bed where he remains. He has vertigo and can hardly stand. This might put a damper on the plans for a weekend. I'm thinking dizziness and boating might not go together so well.

But that's OK. My expectations weren't that high to begin with. It is a good thing too, since birthdays usually don't turn out to be that great in my world. Well, there was one year a long time ago. I invited all of my dear friends out to dinner, then I wrote a song and had them sing it to me. That's the way to have a great birthday, plan it yourself.

It isn't about "gifts" for me. And that is certainly a good thing because if it were I would live in a perpetual   state of disappointment. It isn't that hubby doesn't try. Or wait. Maybe it is. Hey, I don't mean to sound ungrateful. He just called to me a few minutes ago "Bring me my wallet, I have a birthday present for you!" So I did. He pulled out the gift card to Sports Authority that he won in a golf tournament last weekend. I thought surely he was joking. He was not. Hey, they have lots of sporty clothes.....get yourself a new work-out outfit or something. OK. Maybe I'll get myself a gym membership to go with it. Or maybe you can take this card and......

 Well, I won't bore you any longer. I am off to the DMV to get my drivers license renewed. This is my second attempt. The problem is, I live in a 5th wheel and we get our mail in a drop box, and they need proof of my physical address, i.e. a piece of mail sent here, which I don't have because I don't receive mail here, there is no mail box for the RV spaces, so I have a drop box to receive mail. We'll see how it goes today. Maybe they will back down from the crazed "birthday girl" at the counter and give my my freakin' license. I don't want any trouble. Or gifts. Or fanfare. It's just another day........

Spinning a Yarn

When I was young, a long long time ago, I used to have a picture of what life was about. Even though I couldn't really put it into words, today I would liken it to a ball of yarn. I thought life was like a ball of yarn in the sense that when we are born or come into the world that would be the end or shall we say the beginning of our yarn. Then as we age and we go through life I guess I always thought that I would acquire more, that aging meant "more"....so the yarn would begin to grow into a little ball as the things that I acquired were wrapped around me, then as I gained more stuff, more wisdom, more intelligence, more of everything the ball would grow bigger and bigger. And ultimately, I guess I thought that at the end of my life, God would determine that my ball of yarn was complete, and He would bring me home. A tidy picture indeed. In that scenario, in my little girl thoughts, I supposed life was all about gain.  We come into the world with nothing but as we age we have a lot added to us until we are really smart, and rich, and satisfied. That's what I thought back then.

Now I know that what I thought couldn't be further from the truth.

It's more like the ball of yarn reaches a certain point (and I suppose for everyone that point or age is different) but the yarn reaches a stage where it must begin to be unraveled. This is good though, because along the way, along life's way, as the yarn is being wound around us, we accumulate a lot of stuff and a this stuff must be removed from the ball and from us, for our good. We accumulate hurts, those must be removed, we gather false images of what God is like, and He certainly must remove those. But we also gather loved ones, children, spouses, parents, friends, and though they are good they cannot be wound up with us. The ball of yarn eventually becomes very lumpy, and uneven, and maybe even a source of security for us. And how could we ever let go with all of these entanglements, and we cannot take any of it with us anyway. God sees us all bumpy and lumpy and wrapped up with "stuff" so in His wisdom He gently begins to pull on His end of the yarn....and it begins to unravel ever so gently.....and the things that we gathered up and held close begin to loosen from the yarn and fall away as it unravels more and more until ultimately in the end the ball of yarn is completely gone and we are left as we began, just an end. And that must be the moment when He tugs on His end of the yarn and we go to be with Him in glory.

So I continue to give in to this unraveling. Not that I have any choice really. What I mean is that I have learned to enjoy the process....freely spinning in His grace, trusting in His love, and finding greater freedom than that little girl me knew existed. I wish I could go back and tell her how life really is. But I guess she learned the truth in the living....and the unraveling.

"Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone....................for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts."