My Baby A Turns Nine! Part 3

Growing up, my mom never made a big deal or any deal at all out of our birthdays. She’d always comment that she didn’t understand why the kid had to be celebrated when it was the mom who did all the work to bring that baby into the world. Guess she did have a point there. She’d be joking but I could tell she also kinda meant it because she’d say it EVERY year without fail. Also, she’d kind of resent any time she thought we were getting too much attention or thinking too much of ourselves. The refrain, “Who do you think you are that makes you so special?” still runs through my head to this day. She probably did have a point there too, but it’s a hard one to understand when you’re a kid.

I also remember being so stressed out the few times I was invited to a friend’s birthday party. Because I knew I’d have to figure out a way to either buy a gift myself or find one in the house that didn’t look like it was regifted, figure out some way to wrap it that didn’t look too lame (it always did), and see if she was going to be in a good enough mood to drive me to the party (because my dad was hardly ever around then and couldn’t really be counted on to be there even if I did ask beforehand).

The year I turned nine was right when my parents got divorced for the second time. I don’t remember much from that year besides a certain deep sadness and anxiety over what my life was going to look like moving forward. The year I turned thirteen, my mom spent much of that day on the phone to France trying to locate her boyfriend who had essentially broken up with her and returned to his own country. When I asked if we were going to do anything for my birthday, she flew into a rage and screamed at me for being so manipulative and always being such a burden to her. Turns out she was planning to fly to France to go live with him but he was the one who told her to stay because she had a daughter to raise. She calls that the great love story of her life. I call it the time she almost took off halfway around the world leaving it all behind- including me. The year I turned fourteen, I threw my own party since I didn’t want a repeat of the year before. By this time though, she had spontaneously married an old family friend who was over twenty years her senior. (Spontaneous as in, I was still asleep one morning when she burst into my room, put her face close to my face and announced that she was getting married while grinning from ear to ear. That weekend. They divorced a year later. I cried when he left and I never saw him again.) You wouldn’t be far off to say life with my mom was pretty unpredictable. So I had invited three friends, baked my own cake, and hung my own streamers that year. Thankfully we lived a block from the beach otherwise I wouldn’t have thought to have had any sort of activity for my friends to do when they came over. And that was the last year I tried to have a “normal” birthday. Which was fine since she kicked me out of the house by my seventeenth birthday and thought it was a great joke between us because now she wouldn’t have to pay for my college and was going to pin it on her much hated ex-husband (my dad, who had had to declare bankruptcy just prior to my asking if I could move in with him and my step-mom). She was gleeful, I was completely heartbroken.

So birthdays have always been kind of complicated for me. I’ve never been comfortable with the idea of having a group of friends willingly gather for no other reason than to celebrate your life and show that they’re glad you’re here. Because if your own mom doesn’t see the point in it… you know?

And while I still sometimes wonder why it had to be that way and why I still feel like I’m doing things without a framework in trying to raise our kids differently, I can honestly say that all is forgiven. Not by my ability to do so, but His. Not forgotten as the pain will still rear its ugly head every now and then, but definitely forgiven. Because how could I not when one glance at the cross and the gospel reminds me of how much I have been forgiven in Jesus. He is able and willing to make all things new and can redeem any story to bring glory back to Himself. So in Him I trust and carry on. Not because I have all the answers now, but because I know the One who does and by His grace I can live a new life instead of repeating old mistakes and patterns from the past. Though sometimes I still struggle with that, too.

And by His grace I haven’t let the past stop me from celebrating the heck out of each of my kids on their birthdays. Because each of them are a gift directly from God to me and to our family. They each have His fingerprints on every part of who they are and they are worth celebrating because God made them and entrusted them to us. They bear His image and are precious in His sight therefore are worth celebrating and being told how special they are to us. So no matter if the celebration is big or small, the point is that they are worth it to me.

Which brings me to…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy happy birthday my dear Allie girl. You are such a blessing in my life and I don’t know what I would do without you! Sometimes I still struggle with being a girl mom and often wonder if I’m doing it right or totally jacking you up. But just know that you are so very precious to me and that I couldn’t be happier or more proud to be your mom. I want so much for you but most of all, I pray that one day you would come to know and put your trust in the One who made you, who knows you by name, and who laid down His life so that you could know the freedom of true forgiveness and freely extend it to others too. Including me, because I know I’ve made plenty of mistakes with you, too.

I love you my girl.