Today I turn 45 years old! What a wonderful day it’s been so far.
My favorite birthday ritual involves journaling. If you don’t have a birthday ritual, steal mine! Tell me how it goes.
I dream: I think about hopes and fresh goals for the coming year. I reflect: with my Bible in hand, I ask the Holy Spirit to speak to my heart about ways I need to grow and mature this year. I pray: I pray blessings over my family, my students, and my neighbors. I cleanse: I ask God to purify my heart, free me from fears, and lead me away from any activities, relationships, or thoughts that do not please Him. I prepare: I think about what resources I need to move confidently forward in the direction I think God wants me to go. I rejoice: I thank God for everything that comes to mind.
This morning, something funny and special happened. I realized that this was the first birthday in 30 years (30 years!) that I didn’t include weight loss in my birthday goals. I actually didn’t even think about it until I remembered how much I once did. It’s maybe because it simply doesn’t matter so much (ha!–the blessing of age!), but it’s also because of the unexpected blessing of living in a pandemic. All the daily walking, all the healthy eating, and all the new choices to build health and see food as nutrition and medicine changed my life and my relationship to food. So I chuckled about this. It frees up so much mental space to not worry about the body so much. For this, I am thankful.
