Last week I celebrated my birthday. As I mentioned in A Celebration of Life, birthdays are kind of a big deal in my family. That’s because they aren’t just some annual ritual that happens to include cake and presents. No, birthdays are an opportunity to count your blessings, which is exactly what I did this past week.

Blessed Beyond Belief

It amazes me that when I stop to look around me, I am filled with such joy and gratitude for all that God has given me. For starters, I have the absolute best husband (Steve) in the world who is faithful, loving, thoughtful, and truly my better half. Then there is Steve’s and my families, which are just as good as it gets. To top it all off, there are the things that are so easily taken for granted like my health, home, friends, and a job I am passionate about.

Everywhere I look, I am surrounded by God’s grace and goodness, and it’s incredibly important to stop from time to time to notice and appreciate that. “You have done many good things for me, Lord, just as you promised” (Psalm 119:65). I want to make sure that thanksgiving and praise are on my lips at all times acknowledging God’s provisions. “Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! His faithful love endures forever” (Psalm 118:1). May I always remember that “every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father” (James 1:17).

The Gift of Being Loved and Affirmed

This year, as I was thinking about all of the blessings in my life, I felt especially overwhelmed with emotion. Phone calls, texts, cards, and Facebook notes poured in, and it really caught me off guard by just how much each of those meant to me. The older I get, the more I value those precious moments where someone actually takes the time to think of you and express that they value and care about you. Truthfully, those small acts of love and kindness were the greatest gifts I could have received because they made me feel special, cared about, and appreciated, which is something we all want to feel. Like a wave washing over me, I was swept away by the love I received on my birthday.

The outpouring of love I received reminded me how important it is to take time to encourage, uplift, and affirm those we care about. It can be easy to assume your spouse, family member, or friend already knows how you feel about him/her, but don’t leave something so important to assumption. Hearing words of kindness from those we care about can be like a shot of adrenaline to our very soul lifting us up out of discouragement, despair, and sadness. All of us appreciate and desperately need to hear words of affirmation. It’s verbal confirmation of an inner love that cannot be conveyed in any other certain terms. Let your loved ones know that “every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God” (Philippians 1:13). Hearing people tell me how much they appreciated me, cared about me, loved me, and thought highly of me was honestly one of the greatest gifts; I appreciated it more than any of them know, and that’s a gift I want to give people I know every day, not just on their birthday.

The Gift of Love

Besides friends and family making my birthday a blessed one with their kind words of encouragement and thoughtfulness, my husband went above and beyond to make me feel loved and adored. As always, I was left speechless at just how much time, effort, and care he put into planning a memorable celebration for me. It wasn’t so much what we doing or what he got me (which were amazing), but it was the thought and love behind them that moved me so greatly.

The depth of love a spouse can convey is something unparalleled. While Steve went to great lengths to plan a phenomenal birthday celebration for me, the best part was realizing that every day he makes me feel adored, loved, and cherished, not just this one time a year. He treasures me and works hard at making our marriage as great as it can be. Christ says, “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her” (Ephesians 5:25). Steve makes me feel that way. He lives a life that gives me glimpses into how much Christ loves me, which is the greatest kind of love he could show.

Seeing how Steve went above and beyond his already daily efforts to be an amazing husband reminded me of just how precious the gift of love is. Many of us forget that choosing to love our spouse the way we are called and designed to is a gift we can and should give him/her each and every day. That’s what we vowed to do, and it’s an invaluable necessity for our spouse and marriage to be able to blossom and flourish throughout a lifetime.

What I realize more and more with each passing birthday is that life is truly a gift. We are given such a short window of time here on earth, and what we do with it is entirely up to us. Do we value those individuals that God has placed in our life? Do we carry an attitude of gratitude with us? Do we notice and appreciate the blessings we have been given? Those are the types of questions we need to ask ourselves.

This year, as I sat pondering those very questions among others, I welled up with such emotion at just how blessed I truly am. Even in the difficult and trying times, there is so much to still be thankful for. If we choose to see it, we are blessed abundantly.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift of God, which is why we call it the present. ~Bill Keane

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