August 29 2015

August 29 2015 Greetings My Friend Today is my birthday. Each year I look forward to this day and in my older years I don’t get upset at impending age as I did in my younger years. I marvel I am here living and finding life to be full. I have looked younger than my years and I admit that I love looking younger. I strived for years to look younger by not smoking, drinking and such. As I age though I am finding more comfort in my own skin younger or older. As with a lot of us I guess I felt that youth had the most to live for, to do. In my older years though I am finding a sense of purpose and my days are not yet ready to come to an end. In my contentment I find I don’t work so hard to keep my younger looking self. I still don’t smoke, drink and the like. I like to exercise but today I find just moving about as best as I can the best exercise for me. I don’t have to be an accomplished athlete. I don’t have to wear make up any more to feel pretty. This was hard but with allergies I had to stop. Today I enjoy the freedom of presenting myself as I am to the world. I don’t need to be noticed like I once was. First Junior has shown me that I have value and I am a smart woman so I feel very content being his girl. I feel so free in allowing myself to be what Junior finds beautiful. With this tender love I am able to now open my heart to God and feel His love and to be content in whom He is making me to be. To me my older years is accepting myself as I am in God. The more I learn to wrap myself in God’s great arms I find that is all I truly need. With this love and freedom I am moving through life in profound to me ways. I have disabilities and at one time they would have devastated me. Today I am able to allow God to show me how to move within my limitations. In learning to accept these limitations I find a creativeness I never knew I had. God has shown me ways to move around in a new way which also shows itself in things that I create like taking pictures,putting together a collage or even sewing a simple quilt. Writing has opened new doors and it is hard to be discontent anymore. Sometimes I still struggle when an illness takes me real low. It is a huge battle to work my way back to my new normal and frankly it would be easy to just give in. When I get this low though God places a desire on my heart and that desire tends to propel me to work at getting healthy again. Some how I thought my older years would be spent remembering my younger years of agility and ability and mourning those years. I thought I would be lonely and unwanted. This is far from the truth to me. In my older years I learned true hope and not just whishing. I used to hope he would quit hurting me, they would like me. It wasn’t hope it was wishing. Hope to me is learning to trust the gift of Salvation through our Savior Jesus. Hope is learning to hear God and then doing as I hear Him instruct me. I see growth as I have never seen it in me before. May God bless you and keep you make His face shine on you. Love Janet