It's my birthday

The festivities began early this year with a lovely lunch with a co-worker. Then an amazing drive up to the Rockies/Diamond back game with my wonderful boyfriend, only to find out that although the weather had been in the 80's the day before it was now snowing. My sister, brother in law, and several other very loving people were already up at the game, soaking wet and slowing starting to freeze before the game was actually canceled. Because we now had Sunday night open, we got to see "The King's Speech" with Papa and Susi, whom I truly appreciate and feel like they are a wonderful example of a husband and wife totally in love with Christ and each other.

As we watched the movie I began thinking of all the people that I truly admired for overcoming different physical, emotional, or even like the King, auditory. At different points in the movie I was drawn back to this idea that we all have something that we are overcoming whether that be something that is on display for the world to see or these inner wounds that haunt only us. We all have something. We all have a choose to allow that something to ruin us, to steal our voice or make us someone great, someone that people admire, and ultimately someone that brings glory to the most High King.

As part of the birthday celebration I got too spend the day up in woodland park with my boyfriend. As we sat looking out at Manitou Lake, I realized how much I admired him for the things that he has overcome and the strength that he has found in God to overcome certain things. I am grateful for the example he is of a man that doesn't settle and doesn't allow the enemy to hold him captive. He is a fighter and I love that about him. In fact as we talked about different things I thought about all the things that I have been faced with over the years and whether or not I had truly overcame them. I can see several things that I would say I have conquered with the help of God and other very compassionate believers; however, I can see other areas that I pushed under the carpet and have yet to face.
So as I sit here at my favorite Starbucks on the morning of my birth 26 years ago I am challenged to face my wounds and struggles. To not let them steal my voice but to instead allow them to transform me into the women that God desires me to be. Henri Nouwen was said,

When I feel lonely, forgotten, rejected, or despised, I can easily be tempted to respond to these painful experiences with anger, resentment, and a desire for revenge. Much violence in our world is a desperate acting-out of that wounded inner self. But if I am willing to claim my woundedness as my unique way to the resurrection, then I may start caring for my wounds, knowing that they will identify me in my eternal life in God. What does this 'caring for my wounds' mean? It means acknowleding them as revelations of my unique way of being human, listening to them as teachers who help me find my own way to holiness, sharing them as a source of consolation and comfort, and allowing others to pour oil on them and bind them in times of great pain. Thus I proclaim that my wounds are not causes for embarrassment, but the source of a joyful acknowledgement of my unique vocation to journey with Jesus through suffering to the glory of God"

It is my prayer that as another year has been given to me, I would be a woman that faces my wounds and allows God to use me to encourage and love on others. May we all experience God's deliverance and healing as we point our faces towards the only one that can truly heal us and give us the freedom to truly live. He is the rock on which we can stand.

Brandy