The perfect birthday gift #2

This weekend I celebrated another birthday. For what it's worth I am now 43 years old. What do you do to mark such a momentous occasion? I mean, come on, its hard to get all giddy and excited about middle age. Ponies and balloons really don't light my fire anymore. Someone asked me what I wanted for my birthday. I pondered this question for a while. At first I came up with all the Miss America pageant cliches: world peace, no more wars, an end to childhood hunger. Then I thought no, midlife is nothing without a crisis. What would I want that would ease that growing since of anxiety I have sometimes about getting old (do you realize in 7 years I will qualify for an AARP card!!!) In a flash of self-absorbed brilliance I came up with three perfect gifts.

Gift #2 - The Return of the Stick
Please! This is not what you think (I'm not that insecure)! This gift is all about restoring a sense of control to my life. It comes in the form of a five-speed stick-shift. It requires that I dump the family mini-van in a body of deep water where no one will ever find it. Ever.

Sure getting kids, and soccer balls, and those fold up chairs all parents take to soccer games, and bags upon bags of groceries is so much easier with sliding side doors and fold-down back seats. But the mini-van cost me, dearly. My first car was a standard. My second car, a standard. When I lived overseas I drove a standard. Fourth car, you guessed it, a standard. When we got the mini-van (around the time of child number 3) I had to trade in my stick-shift. It hurt. There is something about having a five-speed that is so empowering. You feel connected to the car. More importantly, you are in control. No automatic anything here. If that car is going to move from zero to whatever, you, the driver, are going to have to make it happen. I want that feeling again. I want my five-speed stick-shift back.

I know, I know, this sounds so much like a typical response to a mid-life crisis. Feeling unsettled in your life old boy, well just go out and buy yourself a nice little sports car (young secretary optional) and all will be well. Perhaps there is a bit of that going on here. But I am aware that the stick shift is more of a symbol than a real answer. A powerful symbol, but a symbol nonetheless. The real answer is about control in my life and who has it. I want it to be me. I am afraid it is God.

Try as I might I can't make the sun come up tomorrow morning. I do not possess the power to make it rain. Nor can I stop a hurricane or a tornado or a beautiful rainbow from appearing. Even the things I think I am in control of - what clothes I wear, what I eat and where I live, really are out of my hands. I have choices, but not control. God is the only one with real control. My task is to not just accept that fact, but to learn to rejoice in it. Because God is about life. God's will for me is life in all of its fullness. There will be things that happen to and around me that I don't like. But nothing, nothing can prevent life from springing forth from every situation. When Jesus rose from the grave it was proof that even death has to give way to God's desire for life!

So, maybe what I need for my birthday is the resolve to just focus on the choices I have been given each day and give up on trying to control everything. I'll work on it. But it would be easier to do with my hand on that stick-shift!