BIRTHDAY MUSINGS...

Because time itself is a spiral, something special happens on your birthday each year: The same energy that God invested in you at birth is present once again.


-Menachem Mendel Schneerson-

(FREE PAPER ROSE TUTORIAL BY: Jeanne of Dream, Create, Inspire can be found here at Jolie Paquet I have been promising you a new tutorial on paper flowers but have been unable to deliver due to illness so I thought you might enjoy this wonderful substitute. These are a fast, fun, and easy embellishment! Great for using up those paper scraps too. I made a big bowl full. Thanks, Jeanne, for sharing such a great idea!)

As I passed by my fading birthday bouquet I noticed the rose petal confetti sprinkled across the table top. I gathered up the rich red velvet scraps into the palm of my hand noting their cool feel on my skin. I studied them, their aged elegance, some crinkling with dryness, others still soft and supple, marveling over their individual beauty apart from the whole of the rose.On impulse I lifted my cupped palm, burying my nose, inhaling deeply of their rich heady scent, pulling away to enjoy the ripe fragrance. I could not resist just one more sampling breath as the thought arose that I am certain that heaven must smell like this. Turning my palm I watched as rose petals rained back onto the tabletop, deciding in that moment, to leave them be.
I have been wondering much about individuality lately. Like, the petals of the rose who have loosed themselves from the constraints that often make them appear whole, as compared to a group of persons. It seems I have been straining against the collectiveness, desiring to break free, letting myself be a little bit scattered and imperfect. I would like, just once, to stand in awe and be amazed to experience a holy moment of being fully, wholly, and totally who and what God created me to be and to have the awareness of it.
Birthdays tend to make me reflective. I have been blessed with seeing the changing of 46 springs, summers, autumns, and winters, living a lifetime of emotions, moving through a variety of experiences, witnessing life and death, sickness and health, want and wealth, loving, laughing, losing, longing, tears and fears, joys, blessings, straining, gaining, becoming...

In this, my 47th year, my birthday wish is to be as the rose petals that liter my tabletop - free to be me, to express my individuality in such a way that it enhances the collectiveness not in a way that detracts from it. It would be beyond amazing if in this year I would discover, embrace, and marvel over my rose petal-like qualities.I Imagine embracing aged elegance as it unfolds itself before me leading me down its path of wisdom. To look past that crinkly dryness creeping up on the outside and to focus on the rich velvet pieces of past, present, and future that seam together the me that is fearfully and wonderfully - just as I am. To nurture the soft supple parts that are still growing, still learning, still becoming the me I am meant to be.

My birthday prayer is asking God to plant in my heart a tiny bud of faith to recognize and step into the dreams He dreams for me and that these dreams would blossom radiantly. May the fragrant grace of His vision, still any confusion or indecision. May His breadth of view be a shared perception of clarity and focus. May He draw me to a place of nourishment that grows me towards the dreams He dreams for me.I have been waiting quietly this first week of my 47th year to clearly perceive how to proceed. I find myself looking forward in anticipation to my 48th year where I can look back and see where this prayer has taken me.

My prayer for you, dear readers, is that you too will experience the blessed beauty of being who you were meant to be and that you too will sense the dreams He dreams for you!

Blessings,
Miss Sandy

P.S. Thank you for all the kindness and concern for my health. I am not there yet - still. I will say this, I am better than I was but not as good as I could be. Things are being narrowed down, another doctor visit later this week, and hopefully some answers as well as curative treatment. I'll still be reserving energy and will post as I am either inspired or as able. Thank you for hanging in there with me! Your encouragement is good medicine indeed!