Year 38

At some point in your life you just want to stop counting birthdays...cause they mean you are getting old right??? At least that is what I used to think.  But I have discovered that each birthday means another year you have to live the life that you want. The trick is making sure that it is really what you want and not what you think you should want or what someone else wants for you.  I think that I lived the life that other people wanted me to live or that I thought I was suppose to live and then I wondered why I wasnt happy or successful. How can we be successful when we arent happy in what we are doing? That doesnt just mean a job.  That includes friendships, relationships, hobbies, religion...etc.  I always seemed to be reaching for this untainable goal only to find out that really wasnt the goal I wanted and I wasted all that time.  At 38 I am heavier than I would like to be and no I don't have the job that makes a lot of money.  In fact I dont have a job outside my home at all. But at 38 I am probably the most content that I have ever been. I have a husband that loves me more than he loves himself. My happiness is the most important thing to him.  I love my husband more than anything in the world and his happiness means everything to me.  He is the man I would have never chosen in my younger years but the man that I am so glad that the adult me was so much smarter to choose.  I have the most amazing son who thinks that I am the most beautiful person in the world and loves me with all his heart, which by the way is such a sweet and caring heart.  I was blessed with an angel baby, my sweet girl Olivia, that changed me in way that made me such a better person. The short time she was in my life made me stop and look at life in such a different way. I know with all my heart that she is watching from heaven with my mom and both of them are proud of the mother and woman that I have become. The greatest thing about this year is that my heart is even closer to God than it has ever been. Last year he stripped me of the rose colored glasses I had been looking through and made me take a long hard look at myself.  I was a control freak. I needed to control every aspect of my life. Well God showed me that he was the one that needed to be in control and nothing I was ever going to do was going to compare to what he could do in my life. I tell you giving him that control was the very best thing that I have ever done. I used to be afraid to say anything about him or my faith....that might have made me look like a "Jesus Freak" or not cool.  I look back and think about all the people that I have encountered in my life and how I for sure didnt show my faith and it makes me sad.  I promised myself I would never do that again.  Any chance I get I tell people my story of loss and how God showed me his blessings and how I chose to learn to dance in the rain and not hide from it.
So 38 is going to be my best year yet.