I am beyond blessed and it is wholly appropriate that I feel this way on a Sunday, the day that I try to remember thank the Lord for all my blessings :)
I have been blessed to have found love in this world that is hard by nature. I was born into a family that loved, cared and valued me as I do my own children. The Lord followed me to each of my homes with each move and granted me new friends and memories in each.
I love and cherish with all my heart each child the Lord has blessed me to bear. I have had the happiness of being married and welcoming each child into a home with a loving husband and father, something that I've seen in my later years is not always the case. My children may have been decades apart in my life, but each was perfectly planned in God's plan and in my happiness.
My daughters were the blessing of my youth. Having daughters in my 20s allowed me to reach into my childhood and share my life with them as I learned how to raise them and be a mother. And thank the Lord, they forgave my mistakes and love me in spite of them!
My sons were the blessing of the middle of my life. In the late summer of my days, the Lord has granted every remaining prayer I had and settled me into marriage to the love of my life and granted me two children with him, both born after I had turned 40. Each was a precious, amazing, singular experience that was absolutely-perfectly-what I, and my marriage, needed.
On days like today, when I know my failing strength is not right for a 51-year-old, these thanks make me smile. When I have a feeling deep in my soul that my fate will be in the footsteps on my mother and grandmother, who felt the bone-weary fatigue and sickness I feel now with my illness, when they battled the cancer that took them in the end, I take this moment to rejoice in what I have been given and still have today. When I cannot leave my bed and realize I am missing moments and hours that other mothers my age still have, I am still thankful. I have been given so much, none of which I ever - or could ever - deserve.
In an hour, it will be my firstborn's 28th birthday. Truly the day my life began, because that was the day God gave me the first person in the world who truly loved me for who I am and who I could love with unconditional love. Erin's birth made me a mother, but also created a new person in me. One who thanked God every day for the gift of her - as I did for each other child He gifted me with - and for my loving husband of today, George.
My childbirth years are behind me and as my mother once said, it is time for me "to raise the children I have already" and not be sad. Every day is a joy and challenge for me to find the energy needed to nurture them, teach them, feed them, care for them...and love them, above all things.
So, to my daughter, Erin, let me say "Happy Birthday", my darling blue-eyed daughter and child of my heart. You made me a mother, and by doing that, made me a better person and true child of God. Have a wonderful birthday and a wonderful life, because you have done just that for me.
I love you, my darling girl.
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