This past week I turned another year older. I am now 34 and this was the first birthday where I didn’t become offended or upset when someone missed my birthday.
Now before I dive into the details of what I mean, I want to share that I had an absolutely AMAZING birthday! One for the books, as they say. It was full of laughter, love, great friends, family, strong coffee, and amazing treats! I really couldn’t have asked for a better celebration of my birthday.
This celebration though, in years past, would have been minimized by certain people not reaching out to wish me a Happy Birthday. It would have made me feel small, less than, and unloved.
Which is 1000% untrue on all fronts.
I hate to admit it but it wasn’t until I began missing people’s birthday that I began to understand how one could miss a birthday. After having Allie, I have missed more birthdays the day they happen than I can count.
And yes, I have them written on my calendar in the kitchen, on my phone, and even on the calendar hanging on the door in our garage leading to the house. And yet still I was and do miss birthdays.
Having a newborn last year and a now very active toddler, I am very rarely able to process a full thought while she is awake. Most days I see the birthdays and say to myself, “Oh, it’s so and so’s birthday. I’ve got to reach out to them today. Buts it not even 7am yet, I’ll text them at a more reasonable hour.”
But when the reasonable hour rolls around I am fully into mom mode. Like my hubby has to text me throughout the day to remember to drink water and eat, kind of mom mode. There are no additional memory receptors going off about anything.
I don’t normally remember that I’ve forgotten to send out a text until it’s 10pm and again that’s not a reasonable hour to text someone happy birthday. So it usually will happen the day after if we have no evening plans or during the
weekend. Which can be days later. And it’s not because I don’t love that person or that they aren’t important to me.
It’s just that my brain shuts off all personal items while Allie is awake to keep her fed, hydrated, safe, and loved. While making dinner, prepping snacks, and the other million household items I’m trying to keep on top off. My amazing multitasking brain is just tasked out and bumps all other items.
So I have been left with the very humbling experience for myself of having to apologize for the belated happy birthday. And I say humbling because I realized that I have prided myself on being someone who never missed another person’s birthday. As if my love for them was only measured in that day and in that moment.
Love thankfully doesn’t work that way! Love stays constant and true, even when our humanness comes into play. Even when we forget or mess up, our love for someone doesn’t change.
If you are putting so much pressure on yourself and berating yourself every time you miss a birthday, forget something, or mess up, please stop. Be kind to yourself. You are human and made of flesh. Say the sincere apology, seek forgiveness, and then let the guilt go. Guilt doesn’t produce anything good. And the only human to get it perfect was Jesus.
And I don’t know about you, but I am light years away from being Jesus and need His grace every day which thankfully is made available to us as it says here in, 2 Corinthians 12:9 NIV
“But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.”
So please fellow momma, reach out and accept the Lord’s grace and embrace it. Give yourself the grace you’d extend to someone else. Please be kind to yourself.
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