{"id":1214,"date":"2016-08-26T11:31:00","date_gmt":"2016-08-26T16:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/happy-birthday-to-me\/"},"modified":"2019-02-18T10:07:15","modified_gmt":"2019-02-18T16:07:15","slug":"happy-birthday-to-me","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/?p=1214","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday to ME!"},"content":{"rendered":"
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My good friend, Debbie Moutsos, inspired me to wish myself a Happy Birthday. Next month, she\u2019s giving herself a 65th birthday party. I love that! Debbie isn\u2019t waiting on a celebration. She IS a celebration and she\u2019s just looking for a place to land. That\u2019s the way I want to celebrate my birthday, too! I AM a celebration because, on this day, I’m celebrating God\u2019s goodness in selecting my Mom and Dad to give me life. They didn\u2019t plan me. But, God did. Mom had determined my 12-years older sister would be her last, but \u201cGod\u2019s ways are so much higher than our ways\u201d.<\/p>\n

I checked on a date calculator app to see how long in days I\u2019ve been here on Planet Earth. At the time of this posting, it\u2019s 24,837 days. 2 hours 50 minutes. That\u2019s a pretty sobering exercise, especially in the consideration of \u201cWhat have I done with those days?\u201d I like to think that I\u2019ve done a pretty good job as a wife, mother and grandmother and I\u2019ve been able to grab the hands of dear friends and helped them in some ways. I like to think that I\u2019ve left some footprints in the sand that might cause others to follow them. That\u2019s who I\u2019ve been so far. <\/p>\n

I realize that I am in Act III of my play, and I seriously think about how I can make the most impact in every day I have left. If you follow me at all on my blogs and messages, you\u2019ll know that I do my best to live in the moments, making most of the moments and sharing as much good news as I can in those moments. I\u2019ve read in God\u2019s Word how He will make me flourish in old age. I\u2019m counting on that \u2013 not that I consider this ripe number of 68 as old age because I still feel like I am in the prime of my life. My son called me yesterday and asked how I was doing and my reply was \u201cI am so thankful to be so healthy, strong and still ALIVE!\u201d He told me he was glad I was, too.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the deal. As I am moving closer and closer to the end of my play, I\u2019ve determined to NOT be burdened with anger, worry and being cynical. Who wants to hang around that old gal? I want to stay free-spirited. I want to have a spring in my step, full of vitality and life. I don\u2019t want to give up, throw in the towel, complain about all that and this. I don\u2019t want to be grumpy and cranky and the one that no one wants at their party. I want to be the one they celebrate. I don\u2019t want to be a boring old person. I want to be sure to die living and not living to die. I want my family to go \u201cWow \u2013 she LIVED!\u201d I\u2019m not dying until I\u2019m dead. I\u2019m making sure I\u2019m living every moment. Just like Jesus said on his last breath \u201cIt is finished!\u201d, that\u2019s when I\u2019ll be done \u2013 not one second before then. I\u2019ll be finished when I am finished. I\u2019ve had an awesome life. Could you and I sit down and have a pity party about all the up and downs, in and outs, twists and turns of our lives? You better believe it. But, every day the past gets cloudier and cloudier because I\u2019m refusing to go there. I\u2019m forgetting those things behind.<\/p>\n

So, here\u2019s my goal for this grand new year. To praise more and worry less; to celebrate more and complain less; to forgive faster, to forget past mistakes, to encourage and cheer others on more, to reach out and touch more, to give warm hugs and high-5\u2019s more, to learn more, to give more, to be more thankful each day God gives me. To add a lot more into the dash (-) that\u2019s between my birthdate and exit-to-heaven date. By the way, I\u2019m so thankful for those 24,837 days in the past\u2026.but each day added to that number just gets me closer to that exit-to-heaven date\u2026..when I\u2019ll slide into heaven with my arms up in the air, yelling \u201cWhat a Ride!\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My good friend, Debbie Moutsos, inspired me to wish myself a Happy Birthday. Next month, she\u2019s giving herself a 65th birthday party. I love that! Debbie isn\u2019t waiting on a celebration. She IS a celebration and she\u2019s just looking for a place to land. That\u2019s the way I want to celebrate my birthday, too! I…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[7559,838,476,7560,7561,674,1790,7562,7563,1795],"class_list":["post-1214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-act-iii","tag-celebration","tag-footprints","tag-free-spirited","tag-gods-goodness","tag-happy-birthday","tag-happy-birthday-to-me","tag-prime-of-life","tag-still-alive","tag-what-a-ride"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5557,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1214\/revisions\/5557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mypeacezone.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}