August, 2026 – Another Year – Another Chapter! Bring on the Cake!

“He rescued me, because He delighted in me.”  – Psalm 18.19b   Or, in my own very loose translation, ‘He (God) is kee-razy over me!!’   I’m thinking that that was not what my mother was thinking on the day she delivered me all those many years ago in a sweltering August.  It seems like every year she would have to let me know – again! – ‘I suffered so with you’ (giving birth).  And I would woefully/mournfully say, “Mamaaaaaa . . . “   The tiny hospital in the city closest to us, of course, had no air conditioning back in that day,  and I guess it was the hottest August the area had had in years.  After delivering three of my own babies (with/AC!), I felt really badly for her – but, Mama??  There wasn’t a thing that I could have done about it.

I’ve had some interesting birthdays.  Last year’s was so special being a milestone birthday!!  But, there was a year, one of my first, in Romania where absolutely no one remembered ‘my day’ – or, at least, I thought so at first and ended up going to bed at 10:00 that evening feeling more akin to a pity-party rather than having had a birthday recognition, at least.  I learned the next day, or so, that my sons had tried to call me, but being that many years ago and communication not being easy, calls had not gone through.  And birthday greetings by email were kind of not a ‘thing’ yet.  BUT – just after I had gone to bed that night, the phone did ring!  And it was   Romanian friends who had traveled to another part of the country to visit family and just knew that they could not go to sleep that night without calling to wish me  ‘La mulți ani’!!  (Happy Birthday in Romanesc.)   Ahhhhhhh! – it was like balm to my soul.  It was like a little bit of Jesus’ love shed/sprinkled on me through precious friends . . .

Several years ago, I was traveling alone to go ‘up home’ (where I grew up in Maine) to visit relatives and friends for several days.  That trip is a  seven and a half hour one, and gives one a lot of time to think – sometimes too much time!  Once again, it was my birthday, and though I wasn’t lonely, I felt so alone in that car.  I began to wonder why I was ever created.  Why would God have ‘knitted me together in my mother’s womb’?  What was the purpose of my life?  Would it ever have even made a difference whether I was created, breathed life into, sometimes seemingly only gone through the motions of any kind of life, or not?  I couldn’t see it.

I don’t hear voices, but you know that ‘still, small voice’ – God’s gentle whisper mentioned in I Kings 19.12?  In all the craziness of the very curvy Rt. 128N in MA with four lanes traveling up to 70 mph nearly bumper to bumper, God came to me! – in that ‘still, small voice’ – and encouraged me (within me) to look in the rear view mirror.  Okay, but it could only be a nano-second glance on that highway that Time magazine once reported as the most dangerous route in America.  I didn’t think of that, but I glanced at the mirror – and in that ‘twinkling of an eye’, my Creator had volumes to tell me.  Even though it was a glance, it seemed to be so much longer.

I could ‘see’ Him looking straight at me and ever so deeply into my eyes/my very soul and saying, “But, Dawn, I would never have heard you praise Me!  I would have searched forever to hear your praise for Me.  I love you that much – that not just praise from everyone, but specifically praise from you is what I have loved hearing, love hearing now, and will continue to love hearing eternally – from YOU!!”  My spirit/my soul began to cry.  My eyes began to well up with tears.  Had I really dishonored my Lord that deeply in thinking that I didn’t matter to Him?  I had.  But that was the last time I had that feeling/that spirit towards my Almighty and loving Creator!  He more than deserved/deserves my praise for Him on every breath – my complete trust in Him that ‘He does all things well’ — even create me!

As I ‘came back to earth’ – to Rt. 128N in MA, I was very aware of the incredible one-on-one experience I had just had with my Lord – but I have to tell you of my utter humanness and what it was next that raced through my thoughts:  ‘Really, Lord??!!  You would choose the reportedly most dangerous highway in America to have such a precious, personal, and intimate time with me?!!’  Really??!!  Don’t you know I could have been killed — I mean — chances are, Lord . . . ??’   Such a display of my utmost humanness!!  He had it covered.  And it really – in real time – was only a nano-second.  But that time was so precious with Him, it seemed for a much longer span of time.  It really does only take God a split second to either call us, grow us, or teach us – and more than wonderfully tell us that He is kee-razy about us!!  With all of that, who needs cake . . . ?