Birthday Reflections!!!

Today is my 36th birthday (officially at 7:20pm I will be 36.) I don't look forward to birthdays too much anymore. Mostly because I don't like the attention they draw. I just assume that I remain anonymous in my quiet little home with my family. Even the attention my family gives me often leaves me feeling very uncomfortable. (But I am thankful for all the people that love me enough to recognize this day.)

Birthdays should be a time to give God utmost glory for the life that we've been given. The reality is that I deserve death not life. I, as a sinner, have a offended a Holy God just by being born. It's innate sin that puts me in the this position. But God has grace on me by allowing me life in the first place. Without Christ as my Savior there is nothing I can do to redeem myself. Thus in the end, I would get what I deserve. . .death, meaning eternal separation from the God of the universe. But it is His desire to see all man come back to Him thus He sent Christ to save them, to take their place. And it is that reality that informs my birthday reflections today.

My selfish sinful heart has kept me from being sanctified in so many ways, so many times. I believe that I should be further along in this process than I am. I look back over the past 2 decades of my life and realize how much time I have wasted seeking my own pleasure and my own desires. From fighting with my husband over leadership in the home (when I should have been submitting to him) to finding desperate ways to have the family I wanted (large) without being willing to give of myself, the time has been wasted. I cried out to God this morning as this reality sank into my heart.

But I didn't stay in that place. I know that I am forgiven for the wasted time. I also know that because He is Sovereign, He knew that is exactly the direction I would go with life. He's been faithful to wait for me as I took so long to come around to His ways, albeit reluctantly sometimes. But I am here now. I WANT His will for my life. I find that in His Word. I have not always loved His Word. In the past I simply thought it was boring. Shameful admission, that is. His Word is NOT boring. It's full of life giving words that grow me up into the woman He wants me to be. So I have begun praying that He will give me even more love for His Word that I simply can't wait to get there in the morning. I believe He is beginning to answer that. This morning I really wanted to sleep in for my birthday. But I remembered that I made a commitment (His grace in reminding me) and I joyful got up so that I could go downstairs to read in my Bible reading for the day. It's growing more exciting everyday. :)

This is my prayer for the coming year. First of all, I want to see my issues with anger resolved. I have things from my past that I am angry about and that still hurt me deeply. Personally, I am tired of carrying them around. But I have carried them and sadly justified them for so long that I don't know HOW to get rid of them. So I am crying out to the God to take them away. I am asking Him to teach me how to forgive as I am have been forgiven. This anger comes out at my children over simple things. I get easily offended by their sin. It is not "I" that should be offended though. Their sin offends a Holy God just as much as my sin does. So, I am asking for help to recognize when the anger is flaring and when I need to re-evaluating WHY I am feeling angry. The children simply do not deserve anger. God's wrath no longer burns at me because of Christ. That should be true of my children where I am concerned.

The second area that I am asking Him to work in me is regarding my home. I have shamefully not loved the home I have been given. I have many times coveted other homes (especially the beautiful turn of the century homes I drive by in downtown McKinney - that all have for sale signs.) I have a deep desire to learn to homestead and it's hard to do that within the limits of the city limits. There is discontentment that I don't have certain skills that I greatly desire to have. Simply put, I have spent alot of time pouting that I didn't learn how to keep a home the way my heart desires to do so.

One of my heroes of the faith is Sarah Edwards. She was an amazing godly woman whom I want to emulate. I want to be like her in the way that I serve my husband. He's building several areas of business right now in order to bring in finances for us to serve the Lord. I love my husband's heart for giving. I want to do everything I can to help him do that, even if it means that I have to run all aspects of this home in order to give him time to do what needs to be done. But alas, I have bad habits and selfish tendencies that keep from doing this wholeheartedly. My desire is to see them gone or at least diminished by my birthday next year. There are so many skills as a homemaker that I need to pull off such a feat and I am asking God to do that in me. I can't in my own right.

These are my birthday reflections, that I will no longer waste my life pursuing myself but spend my life pursuing the God of the universe and living out His will for my life. Dying to self is how Jesus put it. This is the narrow path and I am turning down that path this day to follow my Savior into a life of death. What joy I find in the prospects of this year. The changes He will work in me as I run after Him. The practical skills He will teach me in my home. The anger that will subside and freedom it will bring to simply live in joy and not worry any longer over my past (or my future and hurts that come then.) This is, I believe, the freedom in Christ I should be living. It's not a freedom to do what I want, but to do what Christ would have me do through Him.