Musings on my birthday eve

So tomorrow is my birthday.

I've always had an interesting relationship with my birthday. I know this may sound odd, but I'm much better about enjoying my birthday than I used to be. I remember being quite young and not very excited to be having a birthday. Kind of backwards, huh? I chalk it up to being a control freak. Argh.

So, a while ago, I decided I needed to be better about enjoying it and I have been. Mostly it starts with being thankful. Which I think is even more important to remember when you're turning 27 (!) (eeks) and you're single.  ; ) Because if I don't start now, there will always be something for me to gripe about! Hopefully singleness won't always be the thing I'm tempted to be whine about and then of course, there will be something else that I will be tempted to focus on. It's amazing how that happens...

Also, between the new years and my birthday, I usually try to come up with a character attribute or two to focus on praying about this year. Usually it's something that God's laid on my heart that I'm miserably failing in and needs special focus. It's nice to know that I won't ever run out of attributes... right? So right now I'm working on a) sensitivity and b) less independent.

Sensitivity is kind of an interesting word, and I'm not sure if it's exactly mentioned in the bible. But I think what I mean by it could be similar to "lovingkindness"... Basically, just being more aware of other peoples. My mother (and probably my poor friends) will tell you that I'm not sure if I've ever picked up on a hint once in my life. And to be honest, I'd like to be more sensitive to that. I know that girls have a tendency to be too sensitive and I think I've kind of rebelled against that, so I'm going for a moderate approach.

And, yes, I'm working on my independent streak. Praising the Lord for not being independent is one of my new challenges. And really, it's a stupid mindset because are we ever really truly independent? Nope. And it probably boils down to selfishness and making it all about me. Dang-nab-it.

Isn't fascinating how often are weakness are our strengths taken to an extreme?