I've had such a good weekend. Some friends who use to live here came for a visit. It was Elena's birthday. She just turned 9, but she thought visiting me for her birthday sounded great. So, she and her sister Grace and their parents came for a visit. We went out for lunch and then came home and played games and went to the park. And, of course, a birthday calls for cake and ice cream. And we played a lot with Hadley. Hadley loved all the extra attention!
This summer I started getting to know a little neighbor boy, Alex. I enjoyed going on walks with him, his baby sister, and his mom. More than once, the subject of birthdays came up. He wanted to know if my puppy, Hadly had a birthday. I assured him that she did and said we would do something to celebrate.
Hadley's birthday is officially on Thursday. However, Alex won't be around then, so we opted to celebrate today. I took him on a trip to Petco to buy Hadley a toy. (She got two. An orange ball and a squeaky bone as well as a bag of treats that Alex picked.) Then I treated Alex to ice cream.
When we got back he enjoyed giving Hadley her treats and her toys. He even sang her "Happy Birthday."
It may all sound a bit silly to some of you. Hadley isn't really aware of her birthday. But I had promised Alex we would do something. Hadley was the reason, but more than anything, I wanted to keep my promise to Alex.
How do you do keeping promises -- especially to children? I think it is important. It teaches them to trust what you say. It makes you a safe, trustworthy person -- to adults or children. I try to be someone who does what they say -- even if "I promise" isn't spoken.
I think Alex and Hadley both had a good time. Alex and Hadley both enjoy each other and I enjoy both of them.
Today, one of my Compassion girls turns 9! Her name is Ambar and she lives in Ecuador. I've sponsored her almost a year and it has been fun to get to know her.
I think God must have known my heart would wish to make her birthday very special. Through the Compassion blog, I connected with a woman named Sara who was going to be traveling to Ecuador. I was able to send several small gifts (all inside a 1lb plastic bag). I got an email last night from Sara saying that she had dropped the package at one of the Compassion offices in Ecuador yesterday.
I was thrilled. While it may be much too hope that Ambar got it today (it would have to be passed on to her center), I love the idea of things getting to her so close to her birthday. I sent her a pretty, pink frilly top. I'm hoping it fits or is a bit big so she can grow into it. I sent lots of pretty hair things, a small purple photo album, stickers, and a small travel size Etch-a-Sketch! I wish I could have sent more, but it feels great to be able to send those items.
Life in Illinois is challenging right now for a lot of people. The economy stinks and the state is without a budget. Many social service agencies are discontinuing services. A major insurance provider is uping coverage cost. All of that is bad and hard and I do not discount any of that -- particularly the social service piece. However, when I think about how little my girls subsist on, I am more aware of the bounty we have.
I hope my few small gifts brighten your day, Ambar. May they be a tangible reminder that you are loved and cared for by me and even more loved and cared from by God.
As most of you reading will probably know, I turned 40 recently -- December 15th to be exact. For the 40 days leading up to my birthday, I blogged about something I was grateful for. On the 12th, some friends gave me a surprise party. On the 16th, my friend Jill and I spent the day together. The 40 days were a great reminder for me to be grateful for what I have. I loved the party and my day with Jill. Overall, it was a good birthday.
On the 15th I got, perhaps, the oddest present I could get. It came in the form of an email from a woman at church. Earlier in the summer, I had interacted with her over a topic. While I wasn't angry with her, that isn't how I came across. She was emailing me after several months to let me know how much that interaction still bothered her.
Honestly, I was surprised. My instinct was to go into defense mode -- a mode I operate out of a lot. Before I could go into lock down, God's voice rang through. "This is how you lived your first 40 years. How will you live your next 40?"
I am convinced that only His Spirit could compel me to immediately type the following
Thank you for the email. I am sorry for how things transpired. None of it was ever about you. But I do recognize that it may have hurt you. Would you be willing to get together with me and perhaps Jill or someone else to talk this through?
I would really like to resolve it and apologize in person.
This my last 40 to 40 post. (Though I may have to modify the button and throw in the idea of practicing gratitude every now and then.) I apologize upfront if it is on the long side, but there is so much to say.
Forty years ago today (11:09 EST to be exact), I made my way into this world with my sister close on my heels 5 minutes later. We were born several weeks early. I weighed in at 3lbs 4oz and she weighed in at 4lbs 3 oz. We were scrawny, tiny things. Though it's not the cutest picture of me, this is the earliest picture that I have of me:
But we grew. I think we were fairly cute by the time we were toddlers:
And here is a picture from elementary school which includes my younger sister, Cathy. Can you believe that long blond hair when we had very short, curly, black hair? She took after my father. We took after our mother.
And then the gangliness of the teen age years:
And then came the college years. Here I am with some of the crew from my School of Leadership Training family group:
And here I am just a few days ago with my friend Jill at the surprise party my community group through for me.
Doing 40 to 40 over the past month and a half has been good for me. The first few were easy. Then I hit a patch and it became harder. I didn't want to "cheat" and just start naming people or items, though there were people I mentioned as well as groups of people. I wanted each one to have some memory or really thought out gratitude to it.
My life is nothing like what I imagined as a child growing up. It's nothing like I thought it would be when I was in college. And it is definitely not what I've craved over the last few years. But doing 40 to 40- practicing gratitude- has helped my focus on the positives over the years with things ranging from an elementary school teacher to the church I am in now to an attribute of God. 40 to 40 has kept me focused on the vast amount of things that I have to be thankful for. Does it take away some of my heart's desires? No, but it does put into perspective all that God has done and is doing over the course of the last forty years.
Today's gratitude is that I am thankful that I know a living, personal God who holds me in the palm of his hand. There are several pieces to this:
He knit me together in my mother's womb. I struggle with knowing this deep down in my heart, but I am claiming that God knit me together without dropping a single stitch:
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderly made; (Psalm 139:13-14 NIV)
But now, this is what the Lord says -- he who created you O Jacob, he who formed you O Israel: "Fear not, for I have redeemed you: I have called you by name and you are mine. (Isaiah 43:1)I am a person riddled with fears. Very slowly God is helping to rid me of those fears. Scripture is clear even in the verse above that we should not fear because we have been redeemed by God. Psalm 23:4 puts it this way:
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.I can hope because God is transforming me. I may sometimes wish it could be quicker, but I am not who I was yesterday or who I will be today. Colossians 1:27 says
To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.More than anything, I can be grateful because God loves me. J. I Packer wrote the book Knowing God. One of my favorite passages in the book says this:
. . . There is tremendous relief in knowing that His love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on a prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery now can disillusion him about me, in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself, and quench His determination to bless me.God's love is utterly realistic. He knows all the bad things I've done, the thoughts I've had, the times when I knew He wanted me to respond one way and I did something totally other. God knows all that and He still loves me.
The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.
At my church we have things called Community Groups. They are our version of small groups. We meet every other week. I had kind of decided that I wasn't going and had communicated this to Debbie earlier in the week.
As I predicted, it was an extremely busy week. I worked Wed. and Thursday at B&N and I knew I was scheduled to work all day Saturday (8:45-4:00). I thought I would need the veg time with the cats.
I came home and changed and went and worked out. When I got home, I checked my email and had one from my friend Jill saying "Did you get my texts or my messages?" As I was reading it, she knocked on my door. She said something about surprising Joe and Debbie and them not knowing whatever and I shouldn't miss it.
Of course, I was highly suspect at this time, but I went. My community group and Mark and Jill had a party for me complete with a triple level chocolate cake.
The really touching part is the gift Jill put together for me. She had emailed or mailed various people in my life ranging from my student days to my InterVarsity days to the present and had compiled a book of encouraging notes.
I am grateful for all the lives it represents, the people I've intersected with throughout the years. They say that some people are only in our lives for a season. This represents many seasons in my life and are good memories. I am thankful for those memories and for each person involved. Perhaps it is eye opening for someone who feels alone so often to visibly see all those connections. I am grateful for that.
In 41 days I will turn 40. You know the BIG deal 40. Okay, I suppose for some people a different age is the one that pushes the edge, but turning 40 makes me nervous. The problem is that I think it makes me nervous for all the wrong reasons. It makes nervous that I'm not married or even dating anyone. It makes me nervous that I don't have children. It makes me nervous that I still sometimes wonder what I am going to be when I grow up.
Mostly, it makes me nervous because I trust God so little and instead of seeing what He has given me, I only see what I don't have.
Forty is a big Biblical number. It rained 40 days and 40 nights. The people of Israel wandered 40 years. Elijah ran for 40 days in the wilderness to a mountain cave where He heard God speak in a whisper. Jesus was tempted by Satan in the wilderness for 40 days but then Mark tells us the angels attended Him.
So, a lot of things happen around 40. Some of it bad like wandering as a punishment but other good things like hearing God in a whisper. I want to mark my 40 years in a positive way. I want to practice the attitude of gratitude.
Simply put, for the next 40 days there will be at least one post a day that is simply something I am grateful for. It could be a person, a thing, a event, a positive comment someone made. Maybe it is a happy story from when I was a child. Whatever it is, it has to be positive.
I think it will be interesting to come up with 40 positives about my 40 years. So if you see a post marked "40 to 40 (35)" that means it is a 40 to 40 post and is gratitude number 35. They say it takes 30 days to change a habit. Pessimism has probably marked my first 40 years. I'd love to see that change to optimism and gratitude for the next 40 years.
Anyone want to join my 40 to 40 club? You don't have to be turning 40. Rather you may just want to practice gratitude for 40 days. If you do, leave a comment below. I'd love ot have some company on this trip. It will all start tomorrow!
If you join the 40 to 40 club or not, please pray for me when you see one of these posts. Pray that it will be more than a head exercise. Pray that it will be an exercise and conditioning of my heart.
PS: Yes, this is about being grateful for what I have. But I also want to be honest. My heart longs for a husband and kids. I struggle with the idea of singleness being a gift. I often hear of people praying for their child's spouse but rarely (if ever) do I hear them say that they are praying their child would remain single.
Here is my going out on a limb even as I start 40 to 40. Would all of you who pray for your child's spouse pray for my spouse as well? Having asked for that, I'm off to be grateful for what God has done the last 40 years.
If you are ever around me when it is my birthday and we happen to be in a public place, I forbid you to break into a round of "Happy Birthday, dear Amy." I would be mortified and probably crawl under the table.
At least that is what I thought until a moment ago. I just read this post at Lisa Whittle's site. It got me thinking and got me excited. It made me think of Zephaniah 3:17.
"The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing."
Can you imagine God taking such delight in you that He sings! I've read that so many times before, but it hit me in a new way tonight after reading Lisa's post. God loves me enough to sing about it. I don't imagine it is a quiet, subdued singing either (unless I need soothing, perhaps). I imagine it is a gusty, full of zest, and full of emotion, shout from the heavens kind of singing. And it is a song to make everyone stop and wonder in amazement.
Somehow, something shifted just now for me. I don't think I would shy away to have the King of the Universe sing to me a love song. I think I would be, I think I am enthralled.
On second thoughts, if any of you want to sing to me when my birthday rolls around next December 15th (I'm safe cause it's far off to remember!), I might not stop you. I might relish the moment as a reminder that God is singing too.
Two Hope Chronicles in one day! Hm. I thought about just giving this one the designation "Hope Thought" but changed my mind. Or I could schedule to post it tomorrow, but I couldn't wait. It seems to big to just be a "thought"! I hope you are hearing music!
