27: With Fasting, With Weeping, With Mourning

Happy Birthday to me!

February 13 is a day I look forward to every year.

I always do my best to make the commemoration of my birth special.

I am an ENFP, after all. The Most Optimistic.

Glass eternally half-full.

Happy Birthday to me.

This year is different.

I had a sense that I shouldn't make today about me. I'm just turning 27. No big deal.

I scheduled two un-birthday events on this day.
One first thing and one in the evening. No real chance for celebration.

That, and it's also Ash Wednesday. {I used to think it was so cool for my birthday to fall on Ash Wednesday with my name being Ashley and all.}

I've given up a lot of unhealthy stuff (that I normally enjoy on my birthday) for Lent.

This week has also just been hard. [Hard in a good way. Hard in a strip you down to deep reliance on God way. I am so thankful for the hardness, but it's hard, nonetheless.]

27. It is going to be a year. I can feel it. After looking forward my whole life to being 26 (yes, I am weird), I just have a sense that 27 is the year that's gonna make all the difference.

I feel grown. Strange. 

For the first time, I feel happy about being grown.

I also feel happy about continuing to grow. (Embracing weaknesses, failures, hardships [see 2 Corinthians 12:10]).

Wow, y'all. I am 27. Praise God for His faithfulness and steadfast love toward me. Praise God!

Every year for my birthday, I choose a birthday verse for the year. My birthday verse has to have the address 2:13. See? My birthday verse.

In the past?

2 Timothy 2:13: if we are faithless, he remains faithful - for he cannot deny himself.

Jeremiah 2:13: for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water.

James 2:13: For judgment is without mercy to one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

This year?

Ra-da-da-da (Elmo says) ...

Joel 2:13 (adding in verse 12 for good measure): "Yet even now," declares the LORD, "return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your hearts and not your garments." Return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love; and he relents over disaster.

This verse is right for this birthday.

For today I feel like it is time to return. To return with my heart. To fast. To weep. To mourn. To rend (tear out) my heart - my deep places. It is time.

If you see me today, check me on my verse. I hope to have it memorized by the day's end.

Also, if you see me today, I am okay. I am so thankful. Overflowing with thankfulness.

God loves me enough to walk with me (and to teach me to walk again). He is ever-patient with a jacked up 27-year-old.

Oh, how He loves me!

And, oh, I love Him so!