Birthdays and other very special days

What is our only confidence?

That our souls to Him belong.

Who holds our days within His hand?

What comes apart from His command?

Keith Getty, Matt Boswell, Jordan Kauflin, Matt Merker and Matt Papa, “Christ Our Hope in Life and Death”

I wrestled with jealousy and possibly despair when Jason got his covid shot.

Being the eternally sunny optimist that I am, I had little confidence that I would ever get the coveted invitation to be shot.  

My soul belongs to Him.  

Those of us who naturally despair of good things in this life perhaps cling all the more tenaciously to this hope.  

Nothing comes apart from His command.  

Though the Department of Health may forget me or care not for me, my God has not forgotten me.  Nothing is a divine oops; all is under His command.  He gives us seasons of waiting for our good: Advent, and Lent, and the other times that try our souls.

And so I can rest while I wait, secure in His hand.

In the meantime, in token of His great mercy, He has brought springtime.  He has given us friends who are generous with their horses and their campfires and warm in their affection, who lift up our hearts.

He has given us dirt to play in and seed to bring forth food from the earth.

{I mean, my dirt is for playing in.  I’d be in trouble if this was my source of food.  But there are actual farmers in this world who know how to really grow food, from whom I can buy it.  But seeds and dirt are fun anyway.}

He gives us the hills and the greening spring fields.

And trampolines.

I was asked to take portraits of a certain puppy for a breeding website.  Puppy’s owner offered to pay me, but I wasn’t sure I could guarantee high enough quality, so we settled on a payment of three whole organic chickens, with which she threw in a bonus dozen organic eggs.

Meet Poppy.  (And if you want to buy a purebred poodle puppy, I can hook you up.)

Tis the season for new summer duds.

And a birthday for a special someone.

You can probably safely assume you’re old when you lick the candles while your kid cuts your birthday cake.

And then, right after Jason’s birthday:  plot twist!

A mere 392 days after entering quarantine, my day came.  The wonders of modern medicine and some unknown hero’s impressive logistical skills came together and I got vaccinated with about four thousand of my closest friends that day.

I was still convinced until it was over that I was going to be kicked out, either for being slightly late (the clinic created more traffic than I expected), for blurring the definition of “teacher” as my occupation, for having my birthday entered wrong in the system (my husband, who registered me, swears he knows when my birthday really is and his fingers just slipped), or for not eating breakfast that morning.

(A nurse addressed a whole batch of us at once when we first entered, but it was hard for me to hear, as I was in the far back and still standing properly outside the building, straining to hear through the open door.  I heard “You’re all here for your first covid shot, right?” and “None of you have any symptoms of covid, right?” and then she said “Something something...right?” and the whole crowd answered “Yes,” so I figured my answer must be yes too.  Only later did I realize she had said, “You’ve all eaten today, right?”  Which I had not.  Seriously, in that whole crowd I was the only one who skipped breakfast?  They had even come through offering single-serving packets of goldfish crackers, which I had politely declined, although I was glad for the lovely gesture.  If I had known my covid shot depended on gross cheddar crackers I might have chosen differently.)

After traveling what had to have been a mile of six-foot-spaced tape X’s, I took my seat with the vaccine administrator, carefully averting my eyes the whole time from piles and PILES of needles (they had 50 stations to receive shots).  Having already given hundreds of shots that morning, she was very efficient, and asked me what I was going to do when I was done there, just as she poked me.  I was momentarily distracted, thinking my first answer (“eat lunch”) might get me in trouble, so I was trying to formulate a truthful and non-controversial answer and then it was already over.  

I proceeded to the socially-distanced waiting area for my prescribed 15-minute wait period—without passing out, despite having to navigate stairs; a flaw in the system, now that I think about it—where I watched fifteen minutes of baby bunny and hedgehog videos, considerately sent to me by Ada, who knows I need help to cope with needles.  

And just like that, it’s over.  My next shot is scheduled for the end of the month, and presumably, even now, my body is memorizing all of covid’s secret weapons of destruction, rendering them ineffective against me.