Chery Courtney Semick
I guess there was a time when I would have wanted to celebrate my birthday for 31 days or longer, but now, I’ll just take the 30th thank you very much. It’s strange how the years have changed my feelings toward my birthday. When once I yearned for the day to arrive, now I am negotiating an alternative. Once I counted the days that would bring the privileges of a driver’s license, dating and independence. Now I ignore the calendar, deny the facts and latch onto any aesthetic solution I can find to combat the inevitable decline of my youth.
The joy of honoring the day I was born seems to have disintegrated into a mere acknowledgement. What is it about youth that causes us to squeeze out every ounce of attention on our special day and then, as adults, pray that no one will ask, “So, how old are you today?” As children, we’d hold up fingers with a broad smile as if we just raised a flag for all to see how big we are. As adults, we fib with a cockeyed smile as if we now had the privilege to select a lower number and stay there.
The day we once held sacred now seems to mock us and so we meet it with gag gifts and black balloons. Instead of making childish wishes when we blow out our candles, we’re wishing we could bypass the ritual and just eat the cake.
To some, the fear that no one will remember their birthday is as disturbing as the day itself. Losing our significance is as threatening as the lines on our faces. We know it is only a matter of years from the womb to the grave and yet we long to return to the days when our birthday party was a major event.
It is a major event to God. Psalm 139 speaks of God’s personal involvement in our creation and our birth. It says that we are always on His mind. “How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand, when I awake, I am still with you.”
To God, we are the center of the universe – the entire reason His Son paid the price to restore our relationship with Him. In fact, He had every one of our birthdays pre-planned! “All the days ordained for me,” the Psalmist continues, “were written in your book before one of them came to be.” How comforting it is to know that there is always One person who is happy that it’s our birthday!