My 30th Birthday

I finally get to join the 30 year old club.  Yes, I have turned 30 years old today.  I have lived on this beautiful earth for three decades.  I got to celebrate my birthday today with many people.  It was a special one.  My cousin priest who has been travelling around the US preaching had stopped at our house before he went back to India today.  This cousin priest is very special to me.  It is through his prayers last year that I started to see things in life with a different perspective.  He taught me to embrace sufferings in life and to fall in love with Jesus. I got to celebrate my 29th birthday with him last year and this year again I got the special blessing to be in his presence while I cut the cake.

George's favorite achan (priest)

My day started with a knock at the door from my next door neighbor and she had in her hands a home made birthday cake for me.  Aww....I don't know how to express my gratitude to this family for bringing such joy into my heart.  Sometimes by seeing the kindness and love in others I feel like I have to improve myself so much more in the area of sharing love with others.  I don't know how they found out about my birthday.  We only see each other once in a while.  But this family just shows so much love through their actions by moving the snow from our driveway during heavy snow storms, offering food and now birthday cake.  Thanking God for this family.

My parents, Sony's parents and my cousin priest was with me while I cut the cake and a special prayer and blessing from our cousin achan. I had three cakes to cut, one which my neighbor brought, my dad bought me a nice cake and Sony's parents brought home made cake.  Lord is really telling me how much He loves me through all this.  My dad bought me a gift, a perfume..aww..it was so special.  How thoughtful of him to get me a perfume! :))  My brother, when he got back home from work brought me one of my favorite food, Char Broiled Chicken Sandwich from Portillos YUM... so sweet of my lit brother.

Now last but not the least my wonderful husband made sure to surprise me with a beautiful birthday gift two weeks ago..hahaha  he bought me a nice dress.  My Sonyji...what would I do without you :)

Not to mention all the calls, VMs, emails, FB msgs from family and friends made me feel like I am the most blessed person in the world.

As I write all this I see the mysterious ways in which the Lord works in our lives, how he makes sure we are happy by fulfilling even the smallest desires of our hearts and sometimes not.  This is just the little story of my life but if we really start paying attention to our daily lives we can see how sometimes everything falls in place, like that parking spot which we really needed and we actually got even in the middle of the crazy church feast celebrations, or the closest spot in the busy hospital parking lot, or making it to an appointment by not getting a single red light.  How about the times we didn't have anyone to share our problems with and a friend calls from out of the blue asking how are you, or how you so badly wanted your child to sleep for 30 mins and with no chance of a nap the kid just passes out because they are tired.  Isn't this all the work of our dear Lord??  If we see it with a different eye we discover there are more blessings in our lives than sufferings.  We just need to look at it from a different angle.  So we come to the point that we cannot complain about anything but receive everything with open hands from our God and just enjoy every bit of life knowing that it is a gift from God.

Life is a blessing and and let us make our lives a blessing to others.