Brithday Blues

Well, today is the 29th and I'm 29 years young!  Yippee :)  Truth be told I've got a few of the birthday blues.  And no, it's not because I'm sick with an upper respiratory infection, despite several nearly heroic attempts to consume my weight in raw vegetable juices laced with grapefruit seed extract and vitamin C powder all the while choking down handfuls of vitamins and garlic only to chase that appetizing recipe with a big whiff of fresh lemon to keep me from drowning in nausea.  Okay, so I'm a little dramatic.  Well, it's my birthday and I can be dramatic if I want to......or something like that.
I had a wonderful day despite my temporary illness.  Wonderful birthday and get well wishes from several friends, as well as helpful advice and tangible help to keep me healthy.  My husband has pampered me with the only spare time he has in a day.  My daughter has gone out of her way to whisk me off my feet and show me how much she loves me and cares for me.  I truly feel very blessed. 
But....there has to be a but, right?  Or the title of the blog wouldn't be birthday blues.  I miss my boys...okay, my step-boys.  I miss them.  Not because I expect them to shower me with birthday banners...because I truly don't.  There was a time when I would have tried to throw myself a pity party telling myself something like, "They didn't even call!  See, that proves it, they don't love me!"  W aah, w aah cry me a river.  That's not it though, I don't have those type of expectations for my sweet step-boys.  It's just that this is another day apart from them.  Another day in which I realize these two super special, growing young men, really don't have anything to do with my day to day life.  But I love them, and I want to share my life, our life with them.  I want to know them in the everday kind of way, not the vacation stay kind of way.  Truth is, they never much notice their dads birthday either.  Wonder how that makes him feel?  He doesn't much talk about it, but I bet it feels a little something like what I've felt today.  This little place in my heart that is just empty because I long to share it with two of the most special people in my life, but I can't.  And I'm not gonna lie, it would be nice to be remembered on my birthday by those two people.  It would be nice, and sweet and endearing - but I don't expect it.  I guess I'm just coming to grips with the fact that I can hurt without a pity party.  It's okay and normal for me to pour my heart out and love these two boys and be sad when they feel so far away, because they are so far away.  It is the same feeling we had last weekend when we stopped to pray for our son in the middle of our family night because he was in a big production at church.  We couldn't be there.  It made our hearts ache.  I can't help but ache for them as well.  If me, a grown adult of 29 hurts and has a hard time, how do these  precious ones take it?  Thankfully I serve a big God.  He's big enough to handle my hurt, to fill my emptiness and to care for the boys hurts too - even if they are growing up 1300 miles away.  Before I know it, I'm not so blue anymore.  Just sad, and this too shall pass.
Hebrews 12
¹² Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees, ¹³ and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed