Birthdays and Aging

Today is my birthday.  I am another year older, hopefully a little wiser, and young at heart.  I am now at the stage of aging when many do not care to acknowledge the number.  Some dislike birthdays altogether.  I have a few thoughts of my own on this subject.

This past spring, I lost a friend to a cruel disease, Jacob Cruezfeldt at the young age of 42.  She is survived by her husband and two young sons.  Her age is one of those numbers that many wish they did not achieve, instead desiring to stay at some younger age.  In previous years I have lost a cousin at 48, another acquaintance around 45, and yet another at 52,  an my (ex) brother-in-law at 47.  I empathized with friends and acquaintances in life and Facebook of young children's passing due to accidents and disease.  This has altered my perspective on birthdays and aging.

I do not particularly enjoy the aging process.   The aches, the pains, the fatigue.  I am not really fond of gray hairs although I try to have fun calling them sparkles and cover them up with dye.  The wrinkles are not overly appealing.  Yet.... I am here, I am alive, I am mostly healthy!  I do not wish to lose sight of how fortunate I am.   The Psalmist said it best in Psalm 39:4

 ⁴ “Show me, LORD, my life’s end
   and the number of my days;
   let me know how fleeting my life is.

Psalm 139:13-16 tells me I am fearfully and wonderfully made and that before I was created all my days were ordained.

"For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.  My frame was not hidden from when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed body, all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be."

 I read in Ecclesiastes 8:8a that I have no power when my life will end any more than I can contain the wind.

"As no one has power over the wind to contain it, so no one has power over the time of their death."

Today I am 41 years old.  Blessed to celebrate another year of life!  I am not guaranteed another year, month, or even day.   I am hopeful to celebrate many, many more.  As many as the Lord allows, I plan to celebrate the days and years I have been given.