Stepping into March, and each day is a reminder that I'm reaching a quarter of a century old... I don't know when this began (I'm sure it was all too soon), but some years ago I started dreading my birthday, in stark contrast to the giddy anticipation of childhood birthdays. I don't think it's the usual fear of getting old, or anxiety about whether I will be remembered. It's the consistent gnawing feeling that I haven't done what I'd wanted to have done by the time I was this age.

It's all very illogical of course, because I can't remember a time when I sat down and decided what I would accomplish by what age. Yet somehow in the back of my mind, there is this murmur of discontent.

The temptation is to scramble to achieve something, or to talk myself into believing that I'm alright. Yet neither comes close to soothing the cry of 'everything inside me looks like everything I hate' (Switchfoot).

So what will it be? Another 25 years of guilt and frenzy and failure and disappointment and scrabbling for some crumb of self-assurance?

A colleague shared this poem with me this week:

Love bade me welcome; yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-eyed Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.

'A guest,' I answer'd, 'worthy to be here.'
Love said, 'You shall be he.'
'I, the unkind, ungrateful? Ah, my dear,
I cannot look on Thee.'
Love took my hand adn smiling did reply,
'Who made the eyes but I?'

'Truth, Lord; but I have marr'd them. Let my shame
Go where it doth deserve.'
'And know you not,' says Love, 'who bore the blame?'
'My dear, then I will serve.'
'You must sit down.' says Love, 'and taste my meat.'
So I did sit and eat.

- 'Love', George Herbert

'... because he first loved us.' (1 John 4:19)