4 Things I Always Do on My Birthday
Posted on 29. Mar, 2011 by Angie Wyatt in Blog
Loading ...
A proper birthday celebration lasts longer than a day. It extends into the coming weekend, and may even get a jump-start from the previous weekend. Really, it’s a birth-week. And, we need an entire week in order to lace our celebration with contemplation.
Each year, on my birth-week, I take time to celebrate life in a contemplative manner. This helps me hear God about the person I’m destined to be in the coming year. It’s gives me focus and spiritual energy.
These 4 “birth-week” traditions help me grow in Spiritual Wellness:
1. Read through old journals, prioritizing my journal from the previous year. This helps me to remember the way I’ve grown and the challenges that I’ve conquered with God. It also reminds me of any spiritual highlights so that I can thank God again. I might read the journals over the course of my birth-week. This year, I’ll read them on a morning when I know I have the house to myself.
2. Do something fun that’s just for me. I remind myself of things that I enjoy by having a fun outing like the spa or a chick flick. This year, I’m planting spring flowers. Planting flower on my birth-week reminders me of the simple things that makes life really special. It leaves me feeling refreshed and relaxed.
3. Ask God to give me an inspiring word for the year. In contemplation, I ask God to reveal a passage in the Bible that I can meditate on throughout the year. I will then use this scripture passage in prayer and meditation. Inevitably, this passage ends up nourishing my soul in profound and prophetic ways throughout the year.
4. Re-evaluate my annual New Year’s goals. By March, my circumstances might have changed. Thus, I review my New Year’s goals in light of any life changes. Then, I make any necessary adjustments and refocus my intention. This helps me stay on track with goals that are realistic, challenging, and centered in God.
Life is a gift from God. Our birth-weeks are sacred. We celebrate having lived another year, and we contemplate the year ahead. How can we get the most life out of life? How can we live as the people we are destined to be? We must practice a contemplative life that’s grounded in hearing God.
What traditions help make your birth-week contemplative and sacred?
To send this to a friend on his or her birthday, click “share/save” below.
3 Responses to “4 Things I Always Do on My Birthday”
Leave a Reply
Video Categories
Recent Blogs
Angie on Facebook
Chris
30. Mar, 2011
Happy Birthday! A little birdie told me it was your birthday today!
Swiss Rose
31. Mar, 2011
God’s blessings for your B’day, Angie. Rose
Jan-Michael
01. Apr, 2011
Yeah Happy B’Day and I just had my 60th! Wow, one day I’ll feel grown-up? Nah! More fun to have the sense of Peter Pan! “Ain’t never goin’ to grow up”.
Anyway, it is great to have a B’day week with the work schedules of family, friends and my activities.
We do all get together once it works out but I like a few quiet days, get a good book and read it during my B’Day week. This year it was Jan Karon’s In the Company of Others, a Father Tim Novel after the Mitford series.
As a dog lover, I love Father Tim’s huge dog that reacts well to passages from the bible but is otherwise not a good listener. The books areso about everday life but lots of bible verses with the story line of each novel.
Veeyond that aspect, we all had a special meal and relaxed together with sharing eachother’s stories and photo books that you can get done hardcover at Apple Store for each year.
So that is our traditions….family, friends, and lastly I like to get some quiet time alone at my local Church who let me in anytime to just think and pray. And that really is good on my B’Day.
Jan-Michael
†