Birthday Thoughts

It's a few minutes past midnight

so technically yesterday 2/24 was my birthday.

I was thinking about my upcoming birthday the night before last. Thoughts included how I feel like I'm very young in spirit but betrayed by my true age. I reflected on the things I had done and hadn't done over my many years..the joys and disappointments -- my journey thus far and the future ahead.



Knowing I would be alone on my birthday, I could have taken the woe-is-me attitude, but determined that was not to be the case. I have so much to be grateful for that to complain about being alone would be a slap in the face for all God brings to my life.



So I awoke on my big birthday morning happy to be alive! Thank you Lord for another day, one you created for me.

Today is the day that the Lord has made, Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

OK, Lord - I WILL!

I plopped a nice pork roast in the crock pot and enjoyed that wonderful aroma all day long!! I knew I had a couple of small red potatos which would be done in a fast couple of minutes in the microwave when it came time to eat my birthday dinner. It was all so easy and quite tasty if I do say so myself. (You'll just have to take my word for it.) ;)

I had two phone calls wishing me Happy Birtday before 10 am. I am so blessed to have family and friends who care for me and make time for me. I had two more calls by 2 pm. Tons of well wishes on Facebook, in emails and snail mail has been arriving since Saturday from people who want me to know they care about me and wish me many blessings in the days ahead. I am so blessed in my relationships.

I was very aware of the Lord's goodness to me throughout the day. I am grateful His hand is on my life. He brought to mind some scripture that really changed my life around about five years into my walk with Him.

"I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

marvelous are your works, and my soul knows very well."

Psalm 139:14

In Hebrew the word fearfully means with great reverence. The word wonderfully means unique, set apart, uniquely marvelous. I am a unique and individually made creation of the Most High and Holy One. What more esteem does a person ever need than the knowledge of the love and care of God Himself! He set me free with that knowledge. Free to be the me that He made..the one that would follow Him all of her days.

Jeremiah 29:13 assures me..."For I know the thoughts (purposes) that I plan for you. Thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give me a future and a hope."

So I get ready to go to bed in a few minutes having had a wonderful blessed day, cared for by my family, friends and the Lord God Almighty feeling like the masterpiece He created and rejoicing in the days He has planned for me. Peaceful and content am I on this birthday in the year of our Lord 2009.

A Rose is a Rose

Roses from my yard!

I have so many beautiful flowers in my yard. Two days ago I picked some roses to put in a vase for the kitchen. They were mostly buds then and today they are outrageously beautiful as they have opened and smell so fragrant!!!

When I look at my flowers I think of the God of Creation.

He surely is into the details!

Each flower is so different from the next and each has so many beautiful parts.

Pansies are like that... each type has its own sweet little face!

Fuschias are another favorite of mine..I love them in hanging baskets on the overhang of the deck. Check out how intricate the colors and again the variety!!! They are so magnificent!

How wonderful of God to give us such beauty in flowers!

It reminds me of each of us as individuals. Our sweet and or strong faces, our individual colors, our need of shade and sun, our need for (living) water, our unfolding like a rose as He grows us to be like Him. We start out as the small seed...then the bud and the Holy Spirit works in us a new growth, unfolding, more fragrant,

more pleasing to the great and awesome Creator of the Universe!

As the roses continued to open the fragrance became stronger. At first i had to bring them close to my nose to smell them and today just two days later my kitchen is full of the beautiful aroma.

Since a day is as a thousand and a thousand as a day to the Lord our God, two days in our time frame is nothing. However, as we grow in Christ and are conformed to His image, two days may be 2 years or 20 years. How open am I to His leading? How obedient am I to His teachings? Do I find contentment on the Potter's Wheel? Am I willing to be soft enough for Him to mold? How deeply do I love Him? The sooner I submit to Him, the more content I am in my circumstances, the less I fight Him on every word from the Word that doesn't jive with how what I think is 'fair' or 'right,' the more He can do with me, thus producing a lovely fragrance that rises up to Him. May I bend easily to His ways in order to be that pleasing aroma.

John 12:3
Then Mary took a twelve-ounce jar of expensive perfume made from essence of nard, and she anointed Jesus' feet with it and wiped his feet with her hair. And the house was filled with fragrance.

Eph 5:2
And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling aroma.