Grace Day
It comes every year on May 30th.
My husband’s birthday. I usually plan months in advance, thinking of ways to surprise and bless him, to honor him on the day of his birth. I look forward to celebrating, eager to shower him with affection and anxious for him to unwrap his gifts.
Birthday cake made from favorite candy and toilet paper rolls -- a nod to a marriage-long inside joke.
But he doesn’t share my enthusiasm. For almost as long as we’ve been married, I observe a reluctance to mark the occasion. A cloud-like malaise and general agitation sets in at least a week before his birthday and lingers for days afterwards. It doesn’t seem to correlate specifically with the number of his years; I noted this pattern before he even hit 30.
Instead, it seems to have everything to do with achievement. The passage of another year seems to be an implicit yardstick for how much he has accomplished in his lifetime. Each May 30th measures out not just the number of days and years that have elapsed but rather how much he believes he should have done by now.
Should.
It’s a word of activity. Performance. A measure of something we’ve done… or haven’t, in many cases. The irony — and heartbreak — of his birthday marking off the things my dear husband thinks he should have done by this point in his life is this: a birthday celebrates the day when we were least able to do anything.
Never are we more vulnerable or more dependent on another than the day of our birth. We are capable of nothing other than basic human functions like eating and sleeping. We begin to draw breath and our parents love us for no other reason than we are theirs.
And so it is with God.
We can do nothing to please Him apart from Christ. Our good works are filthy rags, yet He clothes us with Jesus’ righteousness and calls us His own. This is, at it’s core, the message of grace. Unearned. Unmerited. Freely given for the object of God’s affection at great cost.
We live in a performance-driven culture, but we serve a grace-giving God. [Tweet this.] Our birthdays (and all our days, for that matter) need mark nothing other than the celebration of our entrance to the world — and our ability to do nothing to earn the grace of God.
Happy birthday — grace day — to the love of my life.
You are more than enough.
Thank you for your willingness to share this with others.
Grace day indeed. Thanks for extending me grace honey… all the times I need it.
For others that read this; I do love to get things done, and I take great joy in the building, accomplishing and finishing things. I believe God made me to enjoy (and be good at) those things. However, it’s not the world that determines *what* is built, it’s God that decides the what. More this year than in years past I’ve begun to understand and sense that it’s His opinion/decision on *what* gets built that matters most. Maybe that’s what surrender is all about. 🙂
Beautifully said, Mike. Perhaps each birthday marks what God has done?
Beautiful message Kirsten. I love how you tie the gospel into your writing (I know that sounds like a no brainer, but I hope you know what I mean). You are so good at keeping the main thing, the main thing . . . the gift of His grace is a continual circulating thought in my head … . 😉
And, I know some of the coolest people born on May 30th — tell Mike he shares it also with my youngest son who is 9 today. 😉
Love you dear and happy celebrating, Hester 😉
Thanks, H. I’ll be sure Mike knows what good ‘birthday company’ he’s in. Sending our greetings North to your house. 🙂
Gosh, Kirsten. You’ve hit a nerve with this one, in a very good way. Many of us struggle with the “should” mindset. Our goal “should” be to walk in obedience every day. His ways are not our ways, and sometimes the insignificant things (in our eyes) are monumental in His.
Great post!
It hit my nerve, too, Susan. I actually wrote this weeks ago and it was good for me to read it again today. Grace, grace, more grace.