Birthdays are for Celebrating!

Yesterday was my birthday!  Happy Birthday to ME!  Another year has speedily passed and another is before me...  I'm not as young as I once was, but not as old as I hope to be -- someday.  For now, I'm happy to be in the middle of it all.  I'm fortunate to not have too big an issue with aging.   My mother is doing it with grace, which inspires me to embrace it without fear.  Although I'd prefer to not wrinkle, or have the need of frequent trips to the hair salon!

One thing I've been noticing about my birthdays over the last few years, is that I'm becoming more reflective about my life, and realizing or acknowledging what a great life I have birthed through my own birth!

In my youth I looked forward to my birthdays, because I knew I could count on receiving special presents that I had hinted about leading up to the date.  Or particular milestones like becoming a teen, driving a car, becoming legal -- as if that really mattered considering I'm a Mormon.  And for me, that's what birthdays were all about -- then.  And then my birthdays changed...

Once I started having children, my own birthday didn't seem quite as important, and the focus became their birthdays -- making them special in the ways that I had previously felt important.  Dont' get me wrong, I still like the excuse of presents in order to acquire those important things that need justification -- like the new iPhone 4S!  But since then I haven't felt the need to be the center of celebration simply because I was born.

It's funny how things tend to come full circle even when we dont' realize we're in such a cycle.  Yesterday as I was reflecting on just how lucky and blessed I am to have such a wonderful life, my personal birth felt very significant to me.  Because I had been born, I've been blessed with a beautiful life wherein I've made the choice to give birth to the blessings that surround my life daily and are now my hope for eternity!

Life is about giving birth -- by making choices.  Examples...  My decision to follow the Savior, by keeping His commandments and laws, has been accompanied with a peace and joy in this life, not known to the world at large.   I am aware of this daily.  And the decision I made 33 years ago to marry my husband, when I was such a young girl of 18, gave birth to my eternal family -- that I now enjoy beyond words!  

So yes, birthdays are important because they are the beginnings of life and the creation of what we enjoy and experience daily!  And so this year, my own birth-day feels very significant when I am able to reflect with a perspective that allows me to look back and forward, to how birth has been and will continue to be a significant part of my eternal journey...

Suddenly my own birthday, once again and with a new perspective, is great reason to CELEBRATE!

tDMg
Kathryn Skaggs