This week marks a significant week for me: I turn 45 on Friday. Why is it significant? Well, had you asked me when I was in my 20s what I would be doing when I was 45, I probably would have told you that I didn’t think I would even be here. Now that I look back on it, I realize that every misstep I took then was actually a step that was planned for me.
It’s hard to stomach sometimes when I think about my youth. But you can’t turn back the clock. Even if I could, I don’t know that I would. I firmly believe that I am where the Lord wants me to be right now. If you had told me 25 years ago that I would make that statement – much less in a newspaper – I would have scoffed. It’s not that I didn’t believe in God. I did. And I do. I just didn’t think He was working in my favor. Come to find out, he was all along.
It’s the discoveries like that – the ones that come into focus when you least expect them – that mean the most. Like the first blooms of an azalea bush. Or buds on a dogwood tree. The smell of onions from a freshly cut lawn. That first time you walk on grass in bare feet after being cooped up all winter.
Spring makes me see things in a whole new light. It makes my heart and my soul sing and it affirms in me that anything is possible if you have faith.
I’ll be headed home to South Carolina to celebrate my birthday with my mother. She’s baked me a chocolate birthday cake for as long as I can remember and this year is no different. And to tell you the truth, it just wouldn’t be my birthday if she didn’t.
Living four hours away from her is difficult, especially now that her age is beginning to catch up with her. She can’t get around like she used to and she tires easily. But she is always quick with a joke and she always knows how to make me laugh and smile.
She calls me every Sunday night like clockwork, even if I talk to her at some other point during the week. Sometimes we talk for an hour, sometimes for just a few minutes. Sometimes I call her just to tell her I love her – those times when my heart is overflowing with love for her and when she is on my heart more than normal.
I can’t wait to bite into a piece of my birthday cake. Forty five or not, it’s the small things in life like the taste of a childhood memory that can stop the hands of time and bring everything into focus.
