Compleanno

April is a month full of birthdays.....family and friends. Today is my youngest daughter's birthday.  She is eleven. Her birth was a highlight of my faith growth, but also a faith testing experience.  She is a beautiful young lady......I can't call her a little girl anymore......She has a china doll complexion like her Gma Strom; a vivacious and positive attitude; a motivation to be the best she can be; and a personality all her own.  Like each of my children, she is a gift and a blessing. May she always stay young and happy at heart......so she will have the stamina to take care of me when I am old..... :-)  
 

Youth is happy because it has the ability to see beauty.
Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.

-Franz Kafka

A birth is not only a beginning of a new life, but it is an opportunity of renewed hope and faith. Each passing birthday should be a reminder of pass blessings, and should provide a renewed sense of hope for blessings to come. As Sammy Hagar says, "Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new."  Even though each year passes faster and faster as the days and evenings become filled with challenges and unexpected events, birthdays should be joyful events celebrating a person's accomplishments.  All accomplishments are worth rejoicing no matter how big or small. Accomplishments could even be things learned the hard way, but any gain of wisdom is a positive step towards improving a soul. Pope John XXIII once stated that men are like wine because despite how some turn to vinegar, the best improve with age.  Sprinkles of faith, crumbs of hope, and dashes of charity between birthdays can keep anyone from turning to vinegar.

 Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made.
- Robert Browning

To all of  my family members and friends who have already added one more candle to their birthday cake and to those who with anticipation will be adding one more candle later in the year, may your hearts be filled with joy, peace, and love. Remember the wisdom of Mark Twain who once commented that age is an issue of mind over matter, because if you don't mind, then it doesn't matter. Your age doesn't matter to me for each of you are blooming flowers in my winter seasons.

May the Archangels, Saints, and Mother Mary pray for my loved ones' health and happiness.  Spirit of Jesus, enter their souls. May we all keep laughing.  Amen.     
                                    - little petunia