Sunday, August 21, 2005

Happy Birthday to me!

Today is my 29th birthday. One more year and I'm the big 3-0! I don't know why that feels so significant to me but it does. The end of my 20's... Geez, I still feel like such a child in so many ways. Turning 29 makes me realize how much I'm not a little girl anymore but a woman! Why has it taken me so long to see that. I guess it's been easier to resist seeing that. It feels safer to be a girl. There's so much packed in that word, "woman". I'm still trying to understand what that word means for me.

Birthdays are always reflection times for me. Reflecting back and hoping for the coming year. This year I divide my life into 3 parts: Maryland, Seattle, & Michigan. Maryland was my childhood, my past. And while I can't go back, it's still with me today. I long for redemption and restoration of certain relationships and of my heart that sometimes feels like it's still back there - holding on to something that I haven't been able to let go of yet...

I look back on my time in Seattle, and see how much those years were about digging up the soil of my heart and my life to plant new seeds. Deep roots that I couldn't see at the time. I just felt the pain of growth and change. But today, there's this glorious
garden that's growing beauty and color and life where there were only weeds before.

Michigan, the present. Here my dad is buried. Here I was married on the beach. Here, today, I will be baptized in Lake MI. And to me, being baptized is about a new start. A re-dedication of my life and my heart. A meaningful moment to mark, to set apart, from all other moments, days, birthdays. An entering the water as a girl and re-emerging as the woman, the
butterfly, the wild flower, the untamed natural beauty God has created me to be. With a crowd of witnesses around me, to remind me when I forget.