Birthdays have never had me reflect before on years past but this year has got me thinking !
Like ghosts of Christmas’s past this year I have started to think of Birthdays past. Honestly I really don’t think I remember many before age 11. My 11th birthday I remember what I wore but that is about it, my 12th birthday was a Cinderella theme, My 13th Birthday I really don’t remember because that was the year I had my car accident and was pronounced dead, The next one I remember was 16 but again I don’t remember much accept I wore a wonderful dress with big white flowers on it that I still wish I had and that I put the sweet 16 banner on my nose like Rudolph, from 16 on the birthdays were kinda a blur too but my mother could throw quite the party..I remember some were luau parties and some the Wizard of Oz theme and I was Dorothy. The next birthday I really remember was 26 because an 8 year relationship I was in had just ended and it did not seem a very Happy Birthday as I recall and let me tell you the pictures tell a story.
Birthday 33 is when it started to change as I started drawing back into Christ…from then I remember….I am remembering more in my old age. During the year of Age 33 I had been dealing with Cancer and was living in a House church in California and I really felt the Lord drawing me in and speaking like never before. Around my 33rd Birthday I came to my current hometown for the first time on a visit. While I was here basking in the mountains God stepped up his communications to me and instructed me to go to Haiti that was Sept and by January I was there….a 12 Day mission trip. When I came home I felt a strong pull to move to Wyoming but God told me NO..who knew he had a whole series of events that needed to happen first.
By birthday 34 I was done battling Cancer for the 2nd time and was moving out of the house church and into the home of a 65 year old lady named Shirley in Torrance, CA where I was clear I was supposed to be. I moved in on the day of my 34th Birthday. My time there presented some hardship but the blessings far outweighed those. While in that home I wrote my first book The Puppy Way To Pray http://tinyurl.com and more importantly God used me to lead Shirley back to the Lord and the grand-daughter to the Lord. 4 short moths later as Shirley summoned me in the night and died in my arms it gave me great peace to know her destination and know that she now had the rest she was seeking. Mission Accomplished.
I began praying where God would have me go next and he quickly revealed through dreams and Visions that I should now move to Wyoming. After 23 years in California I had my life and my Car packed up and headed home on the range..Wyoming .I had only visited twice before the decision came to move here but had been praying for a home base and that is what I found.
After a few short months of being here in the Wyo I found a Missions Organization that only lived in my dreams, that gave me a desire to live at a level that was way outside of me and I volunteered there for 8 months until they relocated. Through this organization I went to SE Asia on a Mission earlier this year and it opened my eyes to the reality of human trafficking and changed the way I value people.
I walked across the street the other day and felt this overwhelming wave of home wash over. I have never felt this once in my life. I had been looking for a job that suited me for months and as soon as I was accepted to the 5 month Missions trip God opened a door for me to be a Child Advocate and I started last week. I feel like my friendships with people in all walks of my life have grown deeply and am humbled by the strength and depth of the love I feel in relationships here in Wyoming..the experiences I have beheld in the last 18 months are far beyond explanation and have changed me to the core.
This year I feel like I am finally starting to walk in the Plans and purposes God has for me.
Viva 36
My Birthday wish: That I may decrease and Christ may increase in me..that he will continue to use me as his hands and feet when and where he desires. That he will bring an end to the Genocide in Burma, that he will bring an end to Human Trafficking, and that every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord..Amen
