On becoming forty-one

Today is my birthday.

(go ahead, grab a piece of cake, or chocolate, or maybe pie... just celebrate...
I'll give you a minute)

I love my birthday.
(that's kind of an understatement)

Having a summer birthday, growing up I never got to have group parties...
but all that changed in college...
at the end of my freshman year...
I turned 19...
and....
well...
my parents drove up...
and there was a party...
and Sesame  Street party goods...
there was cake and ice cream...
and everyone was invited.
Now, I went to a smaller school...
but when I tell you my dorm lobby was full o' people eating free cake...
I'm not kidding.
It was great.

My twenty-first birthday found me...
at home
(right, I know... sowing oats and all)
with an Army Ranger making me funnel cakes...
there are worst ways to celebrate than fried dough covered in sugar.

My twenty-seventh, I woke early and took two little tow- headed boys to every play place in town...because seeing them crazy, happy with delight...kinda made my day.

all of my days...
my celebrating...
my life planning...

never prepared me for this life...I live.

I didn't imagine a divorce or a devastated heart...
returning home and being humbled...
wandering and wondering ...
finding God outside of the box in which I had so neatly kept Him...
and finding Him faithful, even when I wasn't...

and I never imagined
cancer becoming a re-connection tool
or a reconciliation...
and yet, I sit here...on the afternoon of my birthday
living that life.

and if I am honest...
it's not always easy...
and it's scary...
and a lot of times sad.

I never imagined discussing DNR's with my husband or explaining faith and healing to my eight -year- old daughter.
I never imagined watching the man that was so strong, be reduced to such levels of pain...

 I wouldn't have picked it (who would?)
but I'm learning to trust the greatest Gift Giver
to help me open all of my days to Him
and what He knows is best...

Some gifts come wrapped in the oddest paper...
but it's a gift , just the same...