Coincidence?

I am officially older now! According to my Mom I was born at 7:37 p.m., 27 years ago today! Wow, that sounds old.

Anyway, it's been a really great day. It started first thing this morning with some birthday text messages and some cool gifts from some of my students. I had a quick little visit from Deneise's class who brought a cute poster they made and a Birthday Cake candle. Several of my students wanted to actually eat the candle, but don't worry, I stopped them. Then I had an excellent Chipotle lunch with my great friends Kristy, Shellee, Abbee, and Parker. The celebrating continued this evening when I had dinner with the fam. Will and Allie were extra cute, it's been way too long since I've seen them! We tried to take some pictures but with the iPhone camera you have to sit still just a little while longer than they were able to...


The celebrating actually started yesterday afternoon with a little birthday lunch with the Rothenberger family! They are just a few of the amazing people that God continues to use to show His love to me. After church and a great lunch I came home and did something I almost never do, took a nap! I usually don't take naps because it surely means I won't go to sleep at night, which is exactly what happened! I laid in bed for a long time trying to sleep but finally got up around midnight. I decided to read my Bible, hoping that a little Jesus time would settle my head and my heart. Now, occasionally when I don't really know what to read I will go to Psalms and find the verse that corresponds with the day. For example, today is February 9th or 2-9, which would correspond to Psalm 2:9 or Psalm 29 the way I usually do it. However, just on a whim, I decided to read Psalm 2:7, as in how old I was turning today. I also happened to be reading out of The Message and this is what it said...

"Let me tell you what God said next. He said, 'You're my son, And today is your birthday. What do you want? Name it."
Now, as soon as I saw the words "today is your birthday" I was like, whoa, weird coincidence! But then when I put that verse in context with some of the things I've been thinking about the last several weeks, it was much more something that God, the creator of the whole universe, was saying just to me! I could literally feel peace come over me in that moment, it was pretty cool. I still didn't go to sleep for a long time but having that moment changed everything for me today.

I'm so thankful for a great day and for all the friends and family that I got to spend it with! And...tomorrow's Jury Duty, which I'm actually pretty excited about!