Favorite Birthday Card

Today is my birthday.

For those of you would never believe if you saw me, I am now, uh, 37 years old.

Strange, only a very short time ago being 37 seemed really old and completely incomprehensible personally. Now it seems so young . . . carefree, just really at the beginning of life . . . .

(Apparently, it is also delusional.)

Last year on my birthday I received a card which I thought deserved note on the blog. This year, it happened again. So, here I share it with you, along with a few of my ponderings about this incredible creation.

The card you see here was made by hand and signed by all the Calvary staff members. Each person’s picture pops up to reveal a personal message they wrote for me.

Even better, a special bible verse was chosen for each person, to reflect the special nature of that person’s contribution to the staff.

For example, I’ll bet Paul, our administrator, must have picked his, or at least approved it (Luke 10:9 “The kingdom of God has come near to you”). And, as for Eric’s verse, well, I’m not quite sure of its significance but, knowing Eric, it seems strangely appropriate as well.

The imagery here, it was explained to me, is that of a tree, symbolizing our interconnectedness and shared passion for our work.

(I was relieved to hear that, as I wondered about the image of the entire staff growing out of my head. I refuse to take all the responsibility for that crazy crowd.)

In addition to the touching imagery, I was happy to see that the order of our staff was appropriately reflected with Harold, our Office Manager, featured with the largest picture prominently in the middle of the card (his verse: 1 Corinthians 15:32 “Do not be deceived: bad company ruins good morals.”)

We’ve been through quite a year together, so the card meant a lot . . . especially the verse at the end, Ezekiel 47:12: “Their leaves will not wither nor their fruit fail, but they will bear fruit every month, because the water flows from the sanctuary. Their fruit will be for food and their leaves for healing.”

For all these reasons I don’t think I’ll forget this birthday card for a long, long time (despite the increasing frequency of snide comments about memory loss).

And since I am now getting to be elderly, I think I deserve to be cut just a little slack. So I hereby choose to just ignore whatever symbolism might be contained in the last fact I learned about my birthday card: it was carefully handcrafted out of paper made in Africa . . . of elephant dung.