30

I've posted every year on my birthday, so I had to break my silence to write down my thoughts of today.

I turned 30 years old today.

It seems like an important number, but to me it's not any more so than the others. A year has gone. I always have to ask myself "What did I do with it?" and my answer always seems to feel a little negative because the answer is always simply " I wish I had done more with it."

The church I've been attending has a little communion service just before the new year and the past two years I've been wise enough to attend. This most recent one, I was really struggling because right after I left the communion service I was heading North to help my dad put my mother into a nursing home. I was praying my mother would see death before she found herself this far gone. So sitting there, in the darkened church praying, I was supposed to go up to the front when I was done and take communion with the pastor.

Instead, I went to the front to say goodnight and that I wouldn't be taking communion that evening but, thank you very much. The pastor, who'd been praying with everyone before they left asked if I wanted to at least pray with him so I agreed.
He prayed a blessing on me, my house, my job, my finances, my family.
And I remember walking away feeling strange, like something was wrong.
It wasn't till I got to my car that I realized what was wrong - I didn't want the prayer that he'd prayed.

If you pray something for me, my hearts desire is that you would pray this - That I would BE a blessing.

God has so intensely blessed me. I'm not blessed with tons of money or stuff, or time, or whatever else - but I've got a peace that I can't explain as to how amazing and unnatural it is. I've got a joy that is so deep I sometimes want to scream and dance and jump up and down while doing something so ordinary as walking into a supermarket. I'm blessed.

And I don't want you to catch Gods ear and ask Him to bless me more. He's so good, I'm confident He'll bless me enough on His own.

What I do want a little extra of is the ability to BE a blessing.

I've worked hard the past two months trying to get out of debt, manage my money well, eat right and healthy, and work hard at work.
But even if I master all those things in the next year - all I will have done is gained the things that any good self-help book can give me.

I don't want a self-help book life.

I want a life that is a blessing.