The Best Birthday Gifts

   So another birthday. I have been blessed to have 34 of them now. Some birthdays have been great...sweet 16 and a 1986 Oldsmobile Calais...still my favorite car. My 25th with a bunch of great college kids and a spiritually phenomenal Third Day Concert. How many people get to worship with thousands of people of their birthday? And some have been less fabulous. I think birthday 10 or 11, I came home after anticipating fried chicken and Publix birthday cake all day only to throw up and be sick with the stomach flu. 30 was a little anti-climactic. We ate out and then Dale went back to work on the church until late into the night. I think that year we didn't even have enough money for presents. Needless to say...there have been a lot of birthdays. However, this year I received something phenomenal.
   Several years ago I finally began to understand that it is not such a good idea (and also not fair) to focus all your value and worth on this one day.  It's not an accurate measure of the blessings and beauty of my life nor of the people in it. Instead, I started to look around me. After that very sad and sorry 30th birthday God and i worked through some issues. I look now at the other 364 days in the year. And I measure the beauty and richness of those relationships in my life based on the whole year rather than just one day.
   Having said this, on this particular birthday I was surprised! I awoke to not only to two little girls, a husband and a mom who were excited about the fact that I was ever born...but numerous text messages and Facebook wishes for a happy birthday. And then my husband had planned a surprise party in which many of my friends drove over 30 minutes to come and spend time with me. I was humbled. I know Facebook messages and texts may seem impersonal but to me they seemed monumental. Someone had taken an extra two minutes to wish me well. And while one could argue that Gainesville isn't really that far....on a week night it is! Many of those people had been up early, worked all day, had pressing things to do and not a lot of money to spend eating out....and yet they came because they loved me enough to do so.  How amazing a gift for me to have those kind of people in my life. God has blessed me something far greater than anything material....but instead with the gift of a community...of a family not limited to flesh and blood.  And I know where this blessing comes from. I know it is something I do not deserve. And it is a beautiful reminder of the God I serve and His love for us. We do not deserve His love and affection. We have no right to His protection and provision. We have only earned death and yet this awesome creator of the universe sees fit to grant me grace and love in ways as overwhelming as my birthday wishes everyday of my life.
  So thank you dear Father in heaven for this birthday and your most awesome gifts. The first of community and the people you have placed in my life.  And second for the beautiful reminders to never take those people or your gift of grace for granted.