I recently turned 32, my birthday is December 22. I often get asked how I feel about my birthday being so close to Christmas. Typically, I find myself responding by saying how I’m really not a big fan of it, there’s a lot of “Happy birthday, Merry Christmas”, including the gifts. This year, that response came with a punch right in the gut from the Holy Spirit. Since that punch, a shift came for this birthday. This past week, I thought how lucky am I to spend my birthday so close to the birth of Christ, in the season of Christmas celebrating Him. I realized how selfish my responses were by not embracing the closeness of our births, and thinking for some reason it’s a negative thing to be born so close to December 25th. Now… I’ll forever want a pool party on my birthday or to be on a beach somewhere, but I’ll never complain again about having a birthday so close to Christmas. Happy birthday, Merry Christmas, what a blessing.

Convictions come so randomly. Thank you Holy Spirit for convicting me of being selfish and self-centered. What a way to start a blog right? Admit to being selfish and self-centered. If there’s one thing you learn in this post, my flesh is so weak, just like most of us. Leading with our flesh, leads straight to destruction. In my case, for 31 years, I had a negative feeling towards my birthday because I felt it wasn’t about me enough. Man. Thankfully, I serve a God who speaks with me and teaches me. This lesson was about selfishness. Die to your selfishness and lean into Christ. Lean into the season of Christmas and His birth. What that means for us, what that brought to all of mankind. Who is Christ? That’s who I need to strive to be more like. Unlike every year before, feeling down that I failed to become who I wanted to be in this past year. Birthdays have always felt so heavy. I would set big “goals” for myself, when the next birthday came around, I’d be disappointed. Another year, same struggles, same addictions I couldn’t break in the past year, same clutter I couldn’t let go of, ect. This conviction, took that pressure off of me (in my selfishness), and set my eyes on Christ. I take a deep breath as I type that last part. My eyes on Christ, exactly where they should be.

I’ve realized, my flesh will fail every time.

Setting goals to be this “perfect” person, fails every time. Why? Because there is no perfect person, unless you’re speaking about Jesus. So instead of looking at what I want to become and thinking- I want to be organized and fit, I want to give up pop finally, I want to be this and that. Instead of that, this year I’m saying, I want to become more like Jesus. I strive to be in His presence as much as I can, to know Him more, to love Him more, and to become more like Him. I want to overflow with the Fruits of the Spirit and trusting, the more that I know Him, the more He’ll change me and trust that those changes will be closer to who I’m meant to be.

Self control, the Fruit of the Spirit that this week has been about. Since I turned 32, I haven’t drank one pop. To some, that doesn’t sound like a huge deal. To me, that’s a mountain. I would drink 2-3 coke/Dr.peppers a day. I’d wake up thinking about my pop in the morning, and drive out of my way to get a large fountain drink, sometimes only to drink half. This week has been full of water and propel and actually feeling like this time, I can do it!

Thank you God for giving me strength this week.

Thank you God for showing me areas in my life that I need to improve, let go and grow in.

Thank you to everyone that wished me happy birthday this past week and showed me love.

Praying you all wished Him a happy birthday as well, never forget the true meaning of Christmas.

xoxo

Kiersten