Since my 30th, I’ve stopped looking forward to my birthday. There’s just something that’s not fun about being a woman past 30 and still single. At least that’s how I viewed it. My birthday was something I came to dread. It was another year of being alone, I am tired of it.
This year, God changed my perspective.
The night before my birthday I was starting to feel the birthday blues, so I started praying. I prayed for God to change my heart, for Him to let me see singleness as a blessing instead of a curse, to not be homesick, for me to have a wonderful day with my team and my other squad mates for my birthday. I also prayed that either I or someone close to me would have a vision or a prophetic word about my husband that day, and that he would get the same thing about me. I know some of it sounds like a long shot, but I was confident that He heard my hearts cry and was going to answer those prayers for me. After all, our Father loves to give good gifts to His children!
So about midnight that night, the girls on my team, Caitlin, Laura, and Sheri and I were all still awake and chatting and a few of my other squad mates started coming to our room to wish me a happy birthday! After they left, my girls decided they didn’t want to wait until the morning to give me the present they got for me. I had NO idea I was even getting a present from them, and I certainly never expected what I got! A little back story before the big reveal.
The first couple days we were in Vietnam, our whole squad was in Ho Chi Minh City for debrief. Our first night there, a few of us decided to go explore a bit and then grab some dinner. So we were walking and this beautiful turquois cross caught my eye. I had to stop and check it out just to see how much it was. I decided if it was about 40,000 to 50,000 dong I would get it. That’s about $2 or $2.50 in us dollars. It was double what I wanted to spend, so I said well I’ll walk on and pray about it, if it’s still there in a day or so then I will get it, and if not then it wasn’t meant to be. Well as luck would have it, I never saw it again.
So back to after midnight on my birthday…(I’m sure you know what’s coming…)
The girls got out this little package and had me open it and I screamed and bounced around! It was that cross! It seriously is one of the most beautiful necklaces! Here is a pic of it!
So this was just the beginning. I was woke up with breakfast in bed. Samson on my team made me an omelet and toast and brought it to me. I was showered with strawberry oreos, strawberry koala cookies, strawberry sting, C2, and cards. After I called my family, a few of the girls and I went to get tattoos. I love my ink and I love how the Lord has used it so many times as a witnessing tool. This tattoo I had been praying about for a long time now and this was the perfect time for it. BeLoved.
More and more and more, the Lord is showing me just how true this is and how I truly am His BeLoved. I know the L is capitalized, and there’s a very specific reason for that, but it would take me too long to explain it all on here. Just trust me, it’s good!
While we were at the tattoo shop, I had got mine finished and another girl was about to get hers, so I was dancing around and singing…just so full of joy! It was then that Libby, said Cindi I can just see your husband. I said what!? She said yeah, I can just see him, he’s big and strong and loves Jesus. He has tattoos too! And I just see him full of joy, and I think brown hair. Ha! Well ok God. Is this what I prayed for?? I mean she is a dear friend of mine, and I did ask for some sort of vision or confirmation about him…welp Happy birthday to me!
So after the ink, we had ministry that night. We were told to be dressed up and be ready by like 5. We got back from the ink, got all dressed up, and Sheri helped me get my hair put up.
So we start walking and finally we get to this restaurant. You’re told to be flexible on the race, and sometimes you just never know what ministry will look like that day. So I asked, what we were going to do there and one of the girls said oh we have to help them for a little while first and then go to the other place. I was like ok. But then the wheels started turning. Something didn’t add up.
SURPRISE!!!
I had NO idea just what they had planned for me. We had dinner, they got the best chocolate strawberry cake, took me to see the new 007 Skyfall movie, then on to Karaoke! The 4 teams we were with this month worked with our contact Ky, to plan a whole day full of surprises. It was amazing. I didn’t get any birthday blues. I was soo overwhelmingly blessed and loved on the whole day. I could not have asked for a better birthday!
