Last night I was thinking about my upcoming 64th birthday. Sixty-four is a pretty cool number. It’s the smallest whole number that is a perfect square, cube, and the sixth power of 2. It’s after an odd number that is neither prime nor composite and is the only even prime number. Like I said, it’s a very cool number.
But wait, there’s more! Back in 1967 the Beatles released a song entitled, “When I’m 64.” I was only 11 back then and 64 seemed ancient. Paul McCartney says he wrote it when he was 16. I think he thought 64 was ancient, too. I’m not gonna lie, today I feel a little ancient myself. It might be my theme song this year……
To be honest, I just didn’t feel a whole lot like celebrating today. Saturday would have been my brother-in-law Ken’s 55th birthday. It was also the day a family we know celebrated the life of their precious toddler. We watched the video of that service on Sunday and were left in awe of the way that young, grieving father spoke of his baby son and encouraged and thanked their remaining 3 children for the parts they had played in their younger brother’s life. He glorified God in an amazing way amidst incredible grief. Such wise insights from a young, heartbroken father……
We also watched a little of the Kobe and Gianna Bryant memorial service today: lives that were well-lived which left their family and friends grieving their loss. Tomorrow is also the birthday of my kids’ preschool teacher’s son who passed away while still in his thirties.
I don’t want to be a downer, but I guess my point is that this year my birthday seemed to be sandwiched in between some tough, emotional losses that just made celebrating my own birthday pretty trivial. So here’s the thing: this year I’ve been trying to focus on the whatevers of Philippians 4:6-7 and this month’s whatever is noble. There’s the noble actions of my sister’s childhood friends who spent the evening of Ken’s birthday with her. There’s the noble and reverent way that grieving, heartbroken family glorified God and publicly honored the surviving siblings in the midst of their loss. There’s the noble way the Bryant family and friends gave the public a glimpse of their private lives and challenged us to relentlessly pursue being a positive influence. So even though the days working up to today had the potential to be pretty crappy, there were also a lot of noble moments in there, too. My takeaway may be kind of simplistic, but it doesn’t negate the truth that in the midst of tough circumstances, there are people who choose to be noble and love on us with their words and actions. I would say that getting a birthday gift like that is full of hope for us all, “When I’m 64”……
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