then there was the time I turned 33...

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME,
I LOVE GROWING OLDER
WITH EVERY NEW DAY I GET TO SEE!

Since my early twenties, which are fading in the rearview mirror awfully quick, I have held to a personal tradition on my birthday. It's more of a resolution, actually, gleaned from my adventures at the farm in the untamed mountains where we grew up as young children. The location of my first childhood home definitely shared a zip code with the actual geographical point, "Middle of Nowhere". Set against a backdrop of the Yosemite mountain range and with a population of less than 200 people, we children were able to romp here in the unspoiled nature, in all its perils and its glory. As a six-year-old little girl, I remember seeing a snake shed its skin for the first time. It was amazing for me and my brother and sister, who sat there, crouched over the intact discarded snake skin for an incredibly long time, marveling. We thought it was so amazing, so "cool", so "rad" (those were the "rad" days, remember?) that a snake could just discard its whole length of skin entirely. I imagined that once the snake decided it was outgrowing itself, it emerged completely whole and renewed from within a now lifeless carapace that had served its purpose but had since become a hindrance.

So, each year I challenge myself. Just before my birthdays, I step up my prayer and reflection time a bit. I endeavor to take stock of my steps over the last year and celebrate the priviledge of actually getting to enjoy another 365 days of life on this lovely planet and in the communities that challenge and shape me. But I also look at myself with a critical eye, seeking to shed the skin (like the snake ~ I know some of you were sitting there wondering why I had taken that lovely little snake skin shedding tangent, weren't you?) that has become a restraint on my life, abundantly. I seek to expel one stifling element of myself and to embrace a new one which holds more promise and purpose for my journey.

The rules are: there are no rules. These elements of myself can be as specific or as general as God leads. But I do this every year in celebration of life, and in honor of God who gives it and seeks for us the kind of FREEDOM from our human concerns that we so fleetingly taste before getting anchored back in worldly concerns again. Pressing toward the goal of abundant life and freedom, I am risking to share with you my choices for this, my thirty-third, year:

To shed: the degenerative illness of "BUSY"
To add: Adhering to the criteria of my spiritual gifts and being deliberate in choosing what to invest and commit myself to (and what NOT to) over the upcoming year.

These two are inexorably married in my life, and evicting the "busy" is long overdue. Wish me well in this HUGE endeavor. I am excited beyond expression to be, still and forever, a work in progress. The day I feel "done" or that I have arrived at the best possible version of myself achievable in God's kingdom is the day I stand before Him in heaven, fervently hoping to hear, "Well done, my good and faithful servant". Until then, a heaping portion of the joy I have is in knowing that each step forward brings me closer to that moment. And in the meantime, the incredible bonus is that I get to enjoy this world, that I get to enjoy such blessings in my life.

Glimpses of my sources of grateful joy this year: my family, the ocean and sky and fields of flowers, the deer at the park at dusk, the buffalo and zonkeys in the hills, singing, listening, laughing, waterfalls and dragonflies, hard lessons and soft falls, the orphaned children of Bridges of Hope ~ South Africa, the grace-fueled parenthood of my two beloved soulful children (LaLa and Dash), my husbands crinkly eyes when he laughs, a comfy bed at the end of a well-spent day, Freebirds burritos and Dr. Pepper, bathrooms covered with water expelled by energetic splashing, having all the laundry complete and house tidy, Hazlenut and Sugar Cookie candles, plastic bags filled with indigo mussel shells from the beach, rock-a-byes and sleepy-night-nights, movies and buttery popcorn, neighborhood cats on the lawn the moment the sprinklers come on, family spa nights, the growing beckon of Maui, worship songs in 2-and-5-year-old voices from the backseat, moments of unplanned stillness and grace, each new Harry Potter book and movie, answering my daughters' deep questions and learning how little I know in the process, the warmth of two pair of warm fuzzy socks, hoping to be again able to be Mommy to another life someday, scrapbooking marathons, the pursuit of loving others as God does.

Life is Spectacular.