I learned growing up, whether it was the intended message or not, that my birthday wasn’t really all that special. Oh, there were birthday events with family, usually, and one or two times a friend or two were invited who showed up, but I knew reality was… when your birthday lands on a holiday some years and the first day of school other years, don’t expect much.
I’m sure I am not the only person who ever got the wrong message about their birthday. A lot of people I’ve encountered have believed the same lie I used to: that our birthdays don’t count or matter. That they’re just another day. But that isn’t the way God sees it, so why should we believe the lie?
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men. ~John 1:1-4
All things were made by God. All things came to being through the power of the Godhead. All things, including you and I. Our life is based in His life; our being in His being. Our capacities, our talents, dreams, personalities, all of it, at their core, are based in Him and were originated for GOOD. Our birthdays should be a time to celebrate the life we have been given; others’ birthdays to celebrate THEIR lives… no matter who they are to us. They are made in God’s image; we are made in His image. We are unique yet the same.
All throughout Scripture we read that God is love, that God loves us, and that He has loved us since before we were born. The Word reminds us that He knows us a lot better than we know ourselves, and loves us the way we are: made in His image. He knows everything about us in every realm of our lives and He loves us… in spite of or perhaps BECAUSE of our faults, knowing we are human. Human… made in His image. And He came down to earth and had a human birthday, just like we have them. He knows what it is like to have a day where people either celebrate you or just go on and not acknowledge or celebrate that you were born. He came to experience all that He could without sinning in the form of Jesus the Christ and that included birthdays as much as it did the Passover Festival. It included celebrating and loving them for who they were. That’s how He lived His life; His ministry shows that.
Birthdays may not have been a big deal in Jesus’ day, but likely people were at least acknowledged a bit extra on the anniversary of when God gifted the world with them; when God gifted them with birth- note I don’t say life… that had already begun months before.
Let’s imagine for a moment, though, what Mary’s birthday might have been like when Jesus was a child. This was his mother. She was the one who carried God in her very womb and birthed His Son, His very presence in the earth in human form. Jesus is five or six years old, and it is Mary’s birthday. Chores have been done and there are a few minutes alone together before the men and women separate for the evening meal. He sits at her side as she stirs the stew one last time before dishing some up for the men-folk. And in this space and time, he can tell her with his presence and possibly his words, “I love you and am so glad you were born; so glad you’re my momma; so glad the Father chose you as my momma.”
On this day, about twenty years before, Mary had been born. Had she not been born, Jesus wouldn’t have been there… not the way he was there… not in the form he was in terms of how he was cared for and taught. He would have had a different momma, been in a different home, been raised in a different family, and had a different experience here on earth.
Who are the people in your life who have touched you? Think back over the years: who has deeply been ingrained into who you are? Who has changed your world?
Granted not all who change our world do so for the better in their intent. Granted people do horrific things, even. Yet we would not be who we are without even those people; those events that have been trials and brought tribulation. So just as much as the people who have been a major blessing in our lives, there is a new paradigm I bring to you: what if we celebrate the births of those who have brought us trials, as well as blessings? We would have had a different life without them and would be a different person. God brought them into your life for a reason, and perhaps that reason was not fulfilled because they made different decisions than what God intended… but nonetheless… they were brought to us and we are better because of it. We survived what we needed to survive; we were blessed where we were meant to be blessed; we have been changed, challenged, transformed, and renewed daily. We can choose to be bitter, or can choose the better way.
So the birthday balloon brigade was not wanted because of habit, but it reminded me of Where I came from… of Who I came from, of Whose I am. It reminded me that I matter to Someone much more than I can imagine or dream of. Someone Who has always had my best in mind.
For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope. Jer. 29:11
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