I had the best birthday ever…which totally caught me off guard. You see, I have to admit that for some reason I always find myself feeling a little depressed at birthday time, and when it’s over, even if it was a fun time, I always end up feeling sad. So this year, I started praying beforehand, because I could already sense the “downness” creeping in. For a lot of people birthdays are no big deal, no cause for celebration, just another day. Well in our wonderful family growing up, birthdays were a time for celebration! Not that it was about gifts, but my parents always let me have a party with my little girlfriends, and when I got older we always did a big family birthday party with my grandparents and Auntie Linda and “the boys”…so I have memories of being a little princess wearing a jeweled crown surrounded by my favorite people in the world. No wonder adult birthdays are a little depressing, huh? Anyway, it wasn’t even that I wanted a jeweled crown (ok maybe I wanted it a little), but it just always seemed like birthdays were frustrating becuase of the expectations.
The same is true of any other big day that you plan to be perfect. My friend and I have been reflecting on this because whenever we plan a big day as a family–hubby, baby, and us, we get all excited and pack up the diaper bag and head out into the world, and then what happens? We get in a fight with our spouse, the baby’s poop blows up up to his shoulders, and it rains the whole time we’re at the zoo. Or, the whole day turns out “ok” but just without any fireworks and we come home exhausted with a vague sense that it wasn’t a whole lot better than a normal day at home. So, contemplating all this, I started praying a few days before my birthday that God would make the day not be about me. Jeff was going to be gone from 7am-6pm at class all day, so I knew I’d be at home without a car, and it was supposed to rain and be cold. And, I decided that was going to be just fine. I began to see the parallels of our expectations about “big days” and our expectations about life. I do the same thing with life. I begin to envision what I hope for something, and next thing I know it builds an expectation about it, and so when that thing doesn’t happen exactly as I envisioned it, I’m disappointed. So instead, recognizing this was a metaphor for my life, I began praying for expectancy without expectation (this is not original to me, Paul Young coined this phrase in The Shack). Expectancy without expectation means that we have the same eager anticipation of blessing, but our eyes are focused on God instead of the circumstance. With expectation, we fix our eyes on a future event, envisioning what it will look like. WIth expectancy, we fix our eyes on Christ, envisioning His perfect character, recognizing that whatever comes from His hand will be good. Beautiful transformation!
So, I must say, I was stunned by my birthday. I’ve never, in my life, received so many calls from friends–friends who I don’t think have ever called me on my birthday (ok, I think facebook helped too). My husband was the first to wish me a special day, then later when I came down for breakfast I had a rose waiting from my dad. My dear friend Janae took me to Starbucks and the outlet mall and since I’m not buying clothes for myself, I used some of my birthday money to buy Jeff clothes–and it was way more fun than getting stuff for me! Even though I forgot the stroller and my wild boy was terrorizing Banana Republic, she helped me corral him, and even played hide-and-seek in the khakis while I purchased Jeff’s clothes. That’s a friend! She wrote me a card that practically brought me to tears and even gave me some sassy summer pants since, as she said, “no girl can go a year without clothes” :-). Dutch and I went on an adventure to the Dollar Store to get cups and pitchers for Jeff’s 30th bday party. My in-laws called and sang to me, then after a delicious lunch at home, Dutch fell right asleep and I had the whole sweet afternoon alone in blessed silence to write and read to my heart’s content. Then my parents and I drove into portland to meet up with Jeff after his class and Dad treated us to an amazing dinner at Newport Seafood Grill where I totally splurged and had tiger prawns (yum!). Yes, Dutch had some colorful moments such as throwing his magna doodle across the table, but all in all it was so sweet. Dad even secretly told the waiter about my bday and he surprised me with a heavenly chocolate souffle with whipped cream and candle. I swear I could feel a jeweled crown materializing on my head. 🙂
Afterwards, Jeff and I decided that Dutch’s bedtime was invalid for the day, and we strolled leisurely through mall 205, getting Dutch a bike helmet and basil for my herb garden, and then Jeff took me to goodwill and said that since goodwill was my one allowance for special occasions in my clothes fast, his present to me was him buying few a few things for me and letting me pick them out. So, hopefully ya’ll don’t feel like I cheated. I got 4 shirts and a skirt from goodwill for a total of $35, which was my birthday present.
So, not that you were dying for a play-by-play of my birthday, but I share that with you because I want to somehow convey the sweet love of God. He treated me like a princess, and yet He also taught me how to take my eyes off myself, my expectations, my envisioning of the future, and to look to Him, the Giver of all good gifts, the one who knows exactly how to fill and satisfy every crevice of our hearts. He is so good. The lines have fallen to me in pleasent places (ps 16:6), I am so thankful. And my prayer is to look to God with expectancy without expectation for the road ahead. I have no idea what this 29th year holds, but I know Who holds it.