This is a day for wondering at our house … not about where the stock market will go today, or whether the weather will remain nice, or what we should do for supper.
For Jan and me, today is a day for wandering the halls of memory that are getting old but not dusty, and wondering … on this March 9, our daughter Bethany’s 23rd birthday, what would she be like if she were still inhabiting our world instead of God’s?
Would she still be as sweet and kind and funny as she was at seven, when we saw her last?
Would she be working or in graduate school — and what would be her interests? Teaching? Social work? Medicine? Flying airplanes?
Would she be married yet, or be in a serious relationship?
And what would she look like?
I can’t answer any of those questions, and I won’t spend a lot of time dwelling on them. We can choose to be maudlin, or to get on with life. We have a lot of life to get on with, so we choose the latter. Many other things will occupy our time and energy today, and that is as it should be.
Still, we can’t help but wonder …
Happy birthday, Bethany.
Professor of Old Testament at Campbell University Divinity School in Buies Creek, North Carolina, and the Contributing Editor and Curriculum Writer at Good Faith Media.
