A birthday reflection

I have been anticipating my 33rd birthday since I was 6 years old. I have a very vivid memory of sitting at our lacquered oak table in the floral wallpaper-clad dining room of our house on Melanie Lane, and asking my Dad, “How old are you, Daddy?”

And he very matter-of-factly said, “I’m 33.”

And right then and there I realized that 33 was the age at which I would be awesome and know everything.

I have only been 33 for a few hours, but I’m beginning to think that 6-year-old me may have been mistaken. 🤣

My birthday has fallen on Easter Sunday a few times in my life, so when I stumbled upon this handy-dandy chart in the Book of Common Prayer that lists the date of Easter Sunday by year, I merrily set to scanning the list to see when the next April 5 Easter would be.

I was pleasantly surprised to see that I’ll share my birthday with my most favorite of days in just three short years! I continued scanning, and saw that it’ll happen again on my 47th and 58th birthdays. So fun!

I kept on down the list, searching for April 5. “Oh, here it is again!” I thought to myself. I moved my finger over one column from the “Apr 5” I spotted to see the year.

“2105! Let’s see, on that birthday I’ll be turning…Oh.”

After a stunned beat or two, I burst out laughing. Nothing quite like facing your mortality on a leisurely jaunt through the BCP. 😅

I pray with all my heart that when April 5, 2105, arrives and I am already in the presence of Jesus, that my children (all of whom will be in their 80s—hard to even wrap my head around!) and grandchildren will remember fondly how much their momma delighted in the years her birthday fell on Easter Sunday, and be rejoicing in the One who has caught up our lives—both theirs and mine—in his tale of redemption.