Happy Birthday it's the big 50!

May 17^th.  The day that made it possible 50 years ago, that I would someday exist.  And not long after that I did come to be, in the womb of a 15 year old named Jill Annette Enzler.  A woman who worked so hard as a stressed out single mother to give me the best of everything there was.  She never traveled abroad but she worked tirelessly to send me to two other continents.  This is just one of thousands of examples of her selfless efforts to love me the best she could.  She sacrificed a lot to give me a good life. 

  A friend of mine passed away a few years back. She made it to 105.  When my first born was a baby I would walk over to her house and listen to her life stories.  Happy stories, and many tragic ones.  She would trail off at the end of some unfortunate unhappy ending and often say, “everyone has their sad story.”   It was her way of saying she knows others suffer and not to get too wrapped up in your own past suffering or current losses.  Others are hurting too.

It sucks big time that I lost my mom shortly after her 40^th birthday.  It sucks big time that she didn’t get to see her grand-kids grow up.  She was mad as hell and so depressed at the thought of not being there to help me…. And to enjoy her own future.  Its been a very frustrating loss and so unfair.

But everyone has their own sad story.  Many people on my friends list have suffered loss that I can’t even bear to ponder.  Husbands have walked out.  Husbands have died unexpectedly leaving young widows swimming in deep grief daily.  Some have lost children….young children to terrible diseases.  Some suffer daily chronic pain from health struggles.  Some have faced hell on earth as they have struggled with addictions, joblessness, or a fight for self worth and purpose amidst crushing depression.  And all of this loss and pain….in my little circle of friends and acquaintances.

So today I will remember my mother, and my loss.  I will buy an ice cream cake she would have loved.  But I won’t look inward long.  I won’t say ‘look at poor me’; ‘look at what I don’t have’.  Because I’m willing to see the pain in the world, the pain that is outward, and it reminds me of the most important truth.  This truth is something that took root in my mothers’ soul and of which she shared with an open and hopeful heart to anyone that would listen.    Jesus died for us, because we are loved and wanted and sought after.  No words can describe Gods longing to be in a loving union with the crown of his creation.  Man.  And anyone….ANYONE that believes in him, trusts in him will have eternal life and will be saved from the second death!  That person will shed this body like an old snake skin and get a new body in heaven that will never die, never get sick, and never cry tears of sadness.

For those of us lost and found in Christ, our suffering is temporary.  Eternity is forever.  Happy birthday mom!  I miss you so much but I’m overjoyed that I will see you again and that Jesus Christ made it possible to have such a hope.  J