My Birthday

Happy Sunday evening,

How are you all doing at the end of a wonderful weekend? Ready for yet another work week? Suppose we really don’t have a choice now do we? Time to buckle up and get ready for this week, whether it be work, doctors, taking care of kiddos, or whatever this week looks like for you, I pray you are well, safe and that your week is as amazing as each of you are to me.

I wanted to shoot you all a quick blog and tell you what a busy week and weekend I’ve had. What an amazing birthday I’ve had. I have never had a birthday quite like this one. For 4 days leading up to my birthday I was blessed to celebrate with family and friends and of course my kiddos. John treated me to so many wonderful things and he surprised me with two games I’ve been dying to have. Pitch Car and Ticket to Ride Legacy Edition. I can hardly wait to stary playing Ticket to Ride, and I’m having a blast with Pitch Car. John sure spoils me. I need to work on spoiling him a little more. He’s a wonderful, loving and giving man. I don’t know how I got so lucky. I was happy to celebrate my birthday with him a little bit on Tuesday when he got home from his trip.

My birthday didn’t end there though. Yesterday I was blessed to celebrate with Johns family and even more grateful that Big John shared his birthday celebration with me. Today my girl tribe hosted a wonderful luncheon. Just the five of us and it was awesome.

My birthday doesn’t end here either. Wednesday night my dear friend Susan is treating me to a birthday dinner and Thursday my wonderful friend Sandy is taking me to lunch, then I’ll finally wrap up this birthday on September 11 when my cousin and I go to breakfast.

Guys, I’ve never had a month long birthday, I generally leave that up to John’s beautiful niece Megan, but this birthday, I get to experience three weeks of a birthday celebration and honestly, I’m loving every moment of it.

Is that selfish? I sure hope not, because I’m honestly enjoying every moment of being surrounded by so much love.

I’ve even been blessed to receive so many wonderful birthday wishes from my blogging family too. I’m so blown away in the best way possible.

Thank you everyone, from the bottom of my heart. You’ve touched my life and warmed my heart in the most beautiful way possible. I have absolutely felt the love.

To be reminded of how blessed I am, God knew I needed this kind reminder at this time in my life. He always knows what we need at the moment we need it.

To everyone reading this blog, thank you for being in my life, for supporting my blogging efforts and for making me feel accepted, but most of all, thank you for showing me how wonderful a birthday can be.

I never celebrated my birthday, that is until I was 49 and even then, it was very low key. I’m not complaining, every birthday I’ve had since leaving the cult has been a true blessing and each year, I embrace my birthday even more. I don’t care that I’m 56 year old. I’ve figured out, it’s only a number. The presents are wonderful and I’ve loved every gift I’ve received, but can I be honest with you all? I’m not sure which I like best, the gift or opening it. Of course every gift I’ve received is perfect in every way, but opening the gifts, I feel like a little girl again, except when I was a little girl, I never opened gifts.

Today, blowing out the candles on my cake, I wanted to cry. Happy tears and sad ones too. The feeling of a birthday cake is so special that my happiness was overflowing and my heart hurt too because I denied my own children the gift of celebrating their birthday’s.

Not anymore. My boys will always have a cake, cupcake or whatever they want and they will be wished a happy birthday.

This birthday, being celebrated so much, the negative feeling I have towards the cult for denying it’s followers/me the opportunity to wish someone a happy birthday or buy a gift or celebrate someone, those feelings are going away. I think I’ll always be angry that I didn’t celebrate my own sons birthdays until 5 years ago, but that anger will be tucked away, because as John always reminds me, “there’s a reason you were in the cult for so long and God has a plan for you. Embrace where you are now.”

I am holding onto those words, and I’m enjoying His blessing of bringing so many wonderful people into my life. I am thankful to my family, my framily and my friends, but most of all, I’m thankful that He is showing me that there is life on the outside of cult life.

This birthday and every birthday I’ve been blessed to celebrate helps me see so much clearer that I made the right decision not only for myself, but for my sons to leave the cult.

It is because of those in my life now that my eyes have been opened to being able to see that God is love. I have never been surrounded by more love then I am now.

Tonight when I go to bed, I will be thanking Him for my many blessing and I will be thanking him for you.

Thank you everyone whose taken the time to stop by and read this evenings blog. Thank you for all the birthday wishes and I’ll be writing to you soon. Hopefully tomorrow.

Time for me to get to bed. My 5 am alarm will be going off sooner than later, so I need to try and get a couple hours sleep. Tomorrow is an extra long day.

Have a good night, sleep tight and until next time, Love Life++ Hugs.