Photo and Commentary ©2024 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday, July 14, 2024
It’s not my birthday. If it’s yours, I wish you the happiest of birthdays and a new year brimming with God’s blessings!
I have birthdays on my mind. Three friends celebrated their birthdays last week, my husband celebrated his recently, and today is the birthday of my dear friend Mary, who was born 24 days before me. She lived across the street from me all our growing-up days. She has walked life’s path before me, but only a few weeks before.
When I met and fell in love with the man I would marry, I acquired an immediate bonus blessing – the loving friendship of his mother, whose birthday was the day after mine. We often arranged our summer vacation so we could celebrate our birthdays together in South Dakota.
It was lovely, and comforting, to have back-to-back birthdays. I remember when I turned 40, which seemed such a daunting number to me at the time. My mother-in-law scoffed, “Shelley, 40 is nothing!” She turned 65 the next day, so she had walked the path a quarter century before me.
And then Maylan’s brother and wife had a baby girl, Angela, the day before my birthday. So there we were, three birthdays in a row, going up a generation each day.
Angela and I haven’t had the fun of celebrating our birthdays together for many years. If we did, I could scoff at her current number of candles and tell her it was nothing. I’d already been there, I’d tell her.
Or would I? What would I most want to share with someone, from my vantage point farther down the path?
I immediately thought of this: Jesus has been with me on my path. He’s kept company with me every step.
I am a person who loves words, and I tend to use a lot of them, so I’m sure I could elaborate. I could tell stories of how I know He’s been with me. I could speak of the unexpected turns the path took, the views I encountered, the lessons learned along the way.
But mostly, that Jesus has been with me.
One year, for my birthday gift, I asked my mother-in-law if she would write down some of the stories she’d told us about how the Lord had led in her life, how He had guided and provided, over and over again.
She sat down and wrote out 111 pages in a spiral-bound notebook. We treasure this notebook and turn back to its pages when we want to remember our heritage of faith, and God’s faithfulness.
She had been a widow for 3½ years when she chronicled her walk with the Lord for me. One of the 60 experiences she shared is entitled, “The Saddest Day of My Life,” describing the day her husband died.
But there are many happy experiences she shares, as well. The thread that runs through all her writing is a heart posture that shines out of this passage: “There is a wonderful strength found in putting complete trust in our dear Lord. He has all the answers to our fears and doubtings. The more we commune with Him the greater peace and contentment we have.”
She knew Jesus was with her on her path, and called it good. That’s what she wanted us to know.
As we step out into this brand-new, untried week, it’s good to know that the God who gives us birth and birthdays keeps step with us every day, all the way Home.