Here is a birthday parable for you all. But in order to tell a modern parable, we must first examine a great one by the King of parables, Jesus Christ.
My 24th birthday is similar to a parable Jesus told in the book of Matthew in the New Testament. As I recall, a great king invited all the nobles to come and share in a wedding feast for his son who was getting married. Each royal guest turned down the invitation on account of being “too busy.” The king then invited all the people of the street to come and adorned them with rich robes and sat them down at the royal table with him to celebrate his son’s marriage. And of course, the parable ended with the famous line, “and he threw [the nobles] out into the streets where there will be wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
Pretty ominous last line, eh? But we'll get to that later. Well, on my special day I invited all my closest friends that I have shared several birthdays with already to come and spend the day with me. Let's just say I got the "I'm too busy line" in a variety of ways. Now, I didn't exactly resort to inviting people off the streets (not strangers anyway), but I did run into some friends on the street and invited them to come along. Lo and behold they were the ones who proved themselves to be my friends. I made dinner reservations at a semi-formal restaurant for ten people. You know you are well loved when you sit down to a half empty table of friends. Yes, there were five of us sitting around a huge round table. Now I couldn't adorn my guests with rich robes, but I was able to share my cheescake with the girls. :) We had a fantastic time -- just me and the girls, and laughed at the overzealous waitress who constantly checked our IDs.
And the "nashing of teeth"? I decided not to care anymore if people wanted to spend time with me on my birthday or not. They live in their own punishment, and I shall not rely on people anymore. True friends will show their colors. And what a brilliant array of light it is.
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