A Birthday that Leads to Thoughts

I went to a birthday party this weekend for my 3-year-old niece (today!). Happy Birthday, E!

Lately, I’ve been thinking. Sometimes that’s a bad thing.

My great grandpa lived to be 8 days shy of his 108th birthday. Can you imagine the things he saw in his lifetime? He was born in 1890 and passed away in 1998. Just imagine what he saw. Seriously. That thought boggles my mind a little bit.

But… I’m 34 years old and imagine the things that I’ve seen in this lifetime. 3 decades of cars, 3 decades of photography equipment. The development of a phone that went from house party line (yep, we had that) to cordless to car phone to car bag phone to handheld Zack Morris style to flip phone and now we have the good ol iPhone (or Android if that’s your preference). Big to small to big again. Did it come full circle?

I’ve watched the development of the internet. Facebook was invented. The list really goes on and on.

But here’s another thing that’s been bothering me about all of this… Have people gotten crazier? Or has the creation of social media and the newsfeed and the constant news we see day in and day out just brought this crazy to a festering head?

Truthfully, I think maybe a little bit of both. People want that 15 minutes of fame so they’ll do something they may not have been willing to otherwise. But I also think that this blowing it up on the news and social media has added some fuel to that fire.  I mean people were crazy. I once followed a blog that scared the crap out of me because she started focusing on the crazy from the early 20th century. I had to quit reading because I liked my sleep! p.s. I don’t do scary movies!

I have a 3 1/2-year-old myself. I sometimes wonder if I did her an injustice by bringing her into this crazy world. That may be a weird thing to think about but I worry daily about something happening to her. In fact, I think I’ve used the phrase, “I don’t want anything to happen to you,” a little too much because she repeats that to me daily. I worry daily.

It’s a scary thought. Then add in the fact we’ve been having some extreme, crazy weather. Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Drought, all to an extreme. They’ve predicted the world is coming to an end for a long time. It’s probably true and while we don’t know when that’ll happen… that’s a thought in the back of my mind.

So here’s where I say, I believe in God. I whole-heartedly do. So I’ll trust in him to keep us safe. I’ll say a prayer every morning, every night, even during the day. I once heard that when you give the problem to God, if you continue to worry, you’ve taken it back. Now I’ll ask for forgiveness for taking my fear back and worrying. I’ll laugh because my husband says that worrying is like a rocking chair, it gives you something to do but you get nowhere. I’ll think about all of these things on a daily basis. And I’ll continue to pray to God to watch over all of us.

Healing. Saving. Grace. And at the end of the day, I’ll say Thank you. Thank you for giving me the day I had.

So while this post may have started out as a birthday tribute, I’l mention here I messed that up totally and focused on the what if’s in life. The ones that keep me awake at night.