Birthday blessings

Today is my birthday and I have been blessed to have some time to myself in this busy journey of life.. It has been a great time to reflect and to be thankful for all that God has blessed me with ...

I remember as I got close to turning 50, it was a bit hard. Just to realize that I was not only entering a new decade but that I had most likely lived over half of my life... I whined and moaned a bit, mostly to myself, but soon realized that the alternative to turning 50 was not turning 50. DUH?!! So, from then on, my response to people when asked how it felt to be 50, would be the standard answer... "I am just glad to be here to celebrate being 50"!!! After all, my Dad was only 46 when he died and he never got to experience turning 50. So I was going to "Choose" to be thankful, and I was.

Now, fast forward a few years and what seems like a lifetime, in those years, I am approaching yet another decade next year. 60!! How can that be? where did the time go?!!! I will enjoy this last year in my 50`s then gracefully, accept the next decade if God is willing to give it to me..

My heart is so vulnerable these days... "things" mean so much to me. Not material things, but just little acts, little words, sweet smiles, hugs , "I love you"`s....  notes, phone calls for no reason,... things.... these things are what makes a life worth living. God has blessed me so, and for that, today, I am so thankful. I don`t spend my time thinking of what I want for birthdays, for Christmas... those things will go and be forgotten one day and it is at that time, that I feel rich beyond belief at what God has given me.

Today, I have enjoyed counting those blessings... one by one.....
Mother is always in my heart, missing her today, was just a normal feeling for me on my birthday,  as I got up and remembered all the years she would have been the first one calling to say happy birthday. But today, after I spent those first moments with Tom, after his hug and happy birthday wishes and I love yous, after his car had pulled out of the driveway on his way to work, .... I got a call from Shirley. She was Mother`s best friend growing up and it meant the world to me to have contact with someone from her past.She called just to say she was thinking of me and remembered when I was born because that was the year she got married. On their honeymoon, they stopped by Birmingham to see Mother and Daddy. She told me that Anne, sweet Anne, was acting up at the house when they got there and Mother was so embarrased. Shirley told her not to worry, Anne had just gotten a baby sister and her world had changed forever... so don`t worry about her. Wasn`t that just like Mother, I thought, to worry what someone was thinking and not having everything quiet and peaceful for their visit?! I had never heard that story before and for some reason, it made me feel close to Mother today, when Shirley told me...a glimpse into the past....

I love facebook and the opportunities it gives us to keep yp with friends. Some friends we don`t even know, but have become friends through facebook. Sound funny right? But the birthday wishes started coming in and each one was special to me. One friend that I have met through our blogs and facebook, I only met because she wrote about how she was missing her mother on that particular day. Lara sent me the blog, thinking I would enjoy reading her thoughts... and I wrote her, and we have since, become such good, close friends. to have her remember me , is so special.

Another online group that I have joined this year, MYFRIENDBETh, has over 100 people that belong. We share business tips, vendor information, problems with our business and lots of other things. I have seen other people who have birthdays and people comment, but today, it was my turn. People, sweet ladies, in all stages of life, one by one, stopped in to say Happy Birthday to me. These ladies, I have never met either and may not ever but we feel like we know each other. Another birthday blessing

My phone rang from a random number is Tennessee and when I picked it up, I heard loud voices and static but then..... all together, voices singing "Happy Birthday"... it was Lara`s work , the staff, calling to sing to me. Great surprise... Reminded me of when my sweet friend, Shannon.. her mother, Momo, would always call us on our birthdays to sing to us her version of Happy Birthday on the phone. I missed that but enjoyed this new version from Tennessee!


To have my children call me, to hear their voices on the phone... is always a special gift. As they have gotten older and moved out on their own, I cherish the time I have with them, no matter how short or quick it is. I know as a young married, that I didn`t call Mother every day but as I got older and started to check in with her more often then daily in the last years, I can relate to how much it meant to her as my heart is full when mine do the same.

When I got off the phone with Shirley, my heart was longing to find something of Mothers. Of all the books I have , I wanted to pick one up and find her handwriting, to find something underlined in her writing, for me to see something that had meant enough to her, to underline, and for that to speak to me today. The first book I picked up did it!!  It is titled, "As tall as my heart" A mother`s measure of love.... 

In reading the inside cover, I can relate to it, not only a daughter whose Mother was reading and thinking of her children, but as a Mother, thinking of my own children.. it was beautiful, the meaning, the points that she was making and my heart felt full at that moment. To read the same words she had read and to think what those words meant to her.. , then to read as my perspective, my thoughts about my children and even my sweet Heston. and how I love them.

It said that these pieces, like songs of joy, they give voice to the depth and breadth and ever presence of a mothers love.  Marjorie Holmes affirms what all mothers know, no matter how tall and strong her child  may become, or what heights he may attain, no child ever grows beyond the reach of his mother`s heart.!!

So there you go.... today I am thankful for blessings, for friends, for family, for health, and for the love that is ever flowing from this old heart of mine..... thankful that I was able to have the love that my mother`s heart had for me and most of all, thankful for the love that My Heavenly Father showers down on me... during the good times, during the hard, the unconditional love that He gives me, and my prayer is to give that love away to others when He give opportunities to  me.  Happy Birthday to me!! Thank you, Lord, for being You, for loving us enough...