Birthday thoughts
2022
Warning:
This is an actual journal entry of my birthday reflection
READ at your own risk!
(Find outfit details at the bottom)
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On this Birthday I can say – I feel happy. Genuinely happy.
Some days ago, my darling oldest brother asked me — “How are you? Your bday is in 6days” and I replied, “I’m ecstatic 
and blessed. So blessed” — Our words verbatim.
This is so true of how happy I feel overall, even if I’ve had a low moment during the course of the day. All this to say that at the end of the day, even after crying about anything, going through any motion & leaning on my Abba through any rough times, I want my life’s outlook and heart’s posture to find happiness somewhere in the messiness of life and hold on to it at the end of each day.
It’s not someone else’s job to keep or make me happy. It’s my job to keep choosing happiness and happy-filled things as much as it’s under my control. With contentment wherever I find myself; present enough to appreciate each moment for what it comes with while taking steps forward as necessary towards important things requiring change. Knowing that not every pursuit or secret heart desire is important compared to Heavenly Kingdom’s business. Period.
I genuinely feel happy not because of monetary gains, accolades, or current achievements. I’m unbothered by societal standards or opinions of well-meaning people of where I should be in life at this age or what I should have achieved or attained by now. Happy but not because of my family or our cultural expectations of who I should be or how I should have performed to make the family look good to others. Happy but not because of what “I have” compared to what others “don’t have.”
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I genuinely feel happy especially because I am secure in my identity with a sure foundation about how I want to live the rest of my life. I feel content because I am truly blessed beyond anyone else’s measure of what happiness should look like in pictures or what it should innately mean for me. Period. And I want my family & friends to understand this about me at the core.
Upon reflection, it dawned on me that I used to be a happy person since a child without 75 percent of what I even have in life right now. Simple pleasures of life made me happy then —— Ex: Things that would make me feel happy as a kid were facts like having many siblings (since I’m a people person, my siblings are like my in-built friends whom I obsessed over & loved & today still looove to play/ hang with even to their annoyance hahaha.) And if you can’t tell by how I live my life right now, I still love to play . Little things like playing dress up in my mamas closet made me happy, or playing terrible tricks on my friends at grade school 
. As an adolescent to young adult, things like going out to eat with my friends or just spending serious quality times made me happy. Singing, oooh singing makes me very happy (ask my now coworkers & oldest childhood friends 
they know). So many little, harmless things made me feel happy easily — Then hard things in life happened, some of these hard experiences were results of seeds sown by my disobedient choices & some from other people’s choices. Those things stole my happiness for a while. (You know how you write and scratch it off at times ).
Still Happy with what I wrote though ———
This year, as I count my blessings again, I feel so much joy and gratitude realizing that God answered my prayers & has redeemed as well as restored my happiness back to me especially in the last 4 years of me watching every redeeming unfold closely. I also know how to guard my happiness better than before. Example: Days ago I came home & threw a complete adult fit & tantrum with God in prayer, crying seriously because someone just let me down again during a phone call & it allowed feelings of lies to seep through, lies that God let me down because I’ve yet to see full answers for certain prayers I’ve asked about recently like desiring a new workspace etc etc.
After I was done… my spirit got gently led to settle down & pray with gratitude in my attitude about every OTHER prayers I’ve been blessed to witness God answer for family members, friends & myself too up until last week. Like some wonderful miracles & breakthroughs. So I started to offer thanksgiving immediately after that tantrum. That’s how I guard the happiness & leave no room for the enemy to come to steal it from me by lingering in things or low moments in time like the tantrum. I know this, waiting on God is not always easy but always SO worth it.
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So, for this Birthday in 2022, I’m acknowledging the fact that I feel super grateful for my happiness because it’s a gift and an answered prayer for my childlike wonders that once got lost in the sea of growing up overall & now adulting, having now been found again.
Abba blessed me with this happiness so NOBODY can take that away from me, not haters, Debby downers, happiness or joy mood-stealers & killers. Sometimes happy stealers come in the form of well-meaning people or messages — so I’m careful about what I take in or carry away from what people say to me or what I read or listen to. Holding on only to the TRUTH according to my Abba – period. I let the rest fall to the wayside & keep it moving, no turning back to go pick it up.
Where I am in life currently, like right here right now, I feel completely happy about it. I know that whenever God adds more: Either in form of people, things, or experiences to my life, I will feel blessed then too but it won’t be dependent on the people or things but the giver of all good gifts in my life.
My happiness is not dependent on others’ thoughts, comparing my life with another, or meeting societal or parental or family or friend’s expectations about what should make me happy and that’s my superpower.
I’m happy because God says I should be thankful at all times, in all seasons (so that means even in rough ones requiring patience), I’ll find things to count as blessings & keep pressing forward by faith through grace. Period.
( 1 Thessalonians 5:18)
Above all, I bask in the best peace of mind & heart ever offered to me via John 14:27, literally basking in it daily. This peace makes me not just happy but brings me a fullness of joy.
My 2022 birthday song: “With You” – by Elevation Worship 
A Huge XO!
Ms Rexti
