Today is May 9th – my Birthday. Now I guess May 9th may have no special ring to you but of course it does to me.
I am not a celebration person though and have had many grumpy Birthdays! I could never work out why. Did I feel people were not treating me right? Did I have too few cards? Did someone important forget? Well – the answer was often all of the above! However in another way the answer was something completely different.
Today I remembered how May 9th was special for me as a child (just the date) and also how I used to pray that the sun would shine on my Birthday. I literally did that every year and to my surprise, God did seem to answer my prayers! I can remember many a sunny Birthday.
Well, this year I kept looking at the weather forecast and I could see drizzle and a north east wind forecasted. So . . .what is God up to this year, I wondered! I had decided to go to my son’s favourite place for the morning as his happiness is everything to me and his visual processing gives him few choices to be happy when out. So we went to see our friend Vic and her lovely alpacas. We also took our hover-boards because I remembered Vic had a particularly promising looking new drive for a hover-boarding ride.
When we left in the car it was sunny. I noticed the old familiar cow parsley that is always out for my Birthday (and my Mum remembers from the day I was born.) The bluebells were still out (flowering late this year) and dotted in the hedgerow was the flash of red campion. The yellow was very strong in the green of the leaves – in fact so strong I had to shut my eyes when we went through leafy tunnels. And I thought to myself “Yes, it feels like my Birthday. All my special wild flowers are out.”
I haven’t had any presents because you try buying a present for a colour sensitive person! I haven’t suffered the sound or the pattern of wrapping paper. And I asked not to have cards.
The most memorable thing of my Birthday will be the trip in the car and all the colours of the spring flowers dancing together in unison for me! It seems that I was born at a time when the light feels best for me. And I must have known from very young just how much I needed the sunlight to really make the colours dance.
Did you pray for things that felt important to you as a child? I would love to hear your stories.
Holding Hands with God 