Birthdays are a really strange thing that we celebrate. Today was my birthday, and people just poured love and kind words into my life all day. All weekend really. And for what? Nothing I did. Even my mom, the true heroine today, wished me a happy birthday, when really it should be a “congratulations you did it” day for her (and my dad).
Yet, today was a day that my friends and family honored me.
When you take a step back from the familiarity of the celebration, it’s a really bizarre thing for us to celebrate as much as we do. But as I was reflecting on my day today, I realized how birthdays are such a nice analogy of God’s love for us.
Jamie Tworkowski, in his book “If You Feel Too Much,” writes about birthdays and compares saying “Happy Birthday” with “I’m glad you were born.”
Whoa.
What a truly beautiful thing to say to someone. “I’m glad you were born; I’m glad you exist.” Not “I like _____ about you” or “I’m glad you did _____.” Purely happy that this person was ever alive.
This is something that has taken me a long time to understand. God loves us because…He is love. He loves. He loves us and He loves to love us. He doesn’t love us because we made it through Leviticus, or because we gave up Starbucks for Lent. He doesn’t love us because we have the right body, or because we “have always been a Christian.” Love is something God must do; He can’t help but love because He is love.
We all feel special on our birthdays. People make the day about us; we get to eat wherever we want, and our friends tell us to pick what to do. We get the limelight purely because one day, 25 years ago, we were born.
But this special feeling of love- God wants us to feel this way every day. He really does love us unconditionally, just because we ever existed. There may be a certain level of social pressure that leads many of our friends and acquaintances to wish us happy birthday, but God has no motivation other than His overwhelming love for us. He gains no benefit in our existence other than our existence was His desire.
Today might not be your birthday, but you should know that you are loved today (and every day) with a love so fierce it can’t be contained to one day a year. You did nothing to deserve the love, but it doesn’t lessen the sincerity of it, in the same way that even though I played no real part in my birth, it doesn’t lessen the love my friends have for me today and yesterday while celebrating with me.
That being said…thank you to all who celebrated with me. 25 years and full of love from all of you. I’m so grateful to the Lord for leading me to where I am today, and I’m thankful for each of you and the role you’ve had in my life, even if it was only for a short moment. I raise my glass to all of you.