thought: 25? really? i shouldn't be here.
the other day i wrote about slowing down and lessons i've learned in my 25 years. i'll admit, i'm not too crazy about the whole birthday thing anymore. in fact, i've been downright melancholy about my birthdays the last few years. i think, maybe, it's because somewhere along the way the whole birthday thing has lost its magic. i don't know when, but it did. i still love to celebrate other peoples birthdays and planning something great for them. but for me, i've began to see it as just another day.
last night, though, well it was actually this morning around 4am, i remembered that i do have a reason to celebrate.
you know how you hear those stories of people who shouldn't be alive? they went through some traumatic, life threatening experience and made it through. or how some people seem like all the odds are against them. yet, no matter what, they make a way and beat the odds.
i'm one of those people.
April 28th, 1986 at Whidbey General Hospital in Coupeville, WA is where it began. Mom was on her way there to give birth to her first child. I don't know the particulars of the pregnancy. But I do remember mom telling me once that she had a thing for pineapple pizza while she was carrying me. That explains why I love it so much.
I don't know how long mom was in labor. or even the time i was born. but i do know that i came into this world silent. and blue. and spotted.
i didn't breathe for the first few moments of my life. if you know me, you know that i definitely know how to make an entrance into a room. my entrance into the world wasn't much different. people knew i was coming, yes, but they didn't expect me to be silent about it.
a couple years ago, on my birthday, my grandma posted this on my wall:
I will never forget your grand entrance into the world.
You came fast, real fast, super fast. Or else your mom waited too long to get to the hospital.
The doctor smacked you, but you decided to hold your breath till you turned blue. The doctor threw you like a football to Glenda, the head nurse.
I'm praying in tongues, for 4 long minutes She massaged your heart, gave you her breath, I'm still praying, till you let out a scream . Then I'm HALLELUJAHING!!!!! Wiping my tears. We all were. The
room was full even Grandpa
after the initial scare, i was a fairly healthy baby. i weighed in at 8lbs 1oz and was 21 1/2 inches long. they say i was cute. and a mess.
i was cute. and i was a mess. but look at that picture again. notice my eye? when i was born, my eyes were focused inward. you could say i have a lazy eye. well, yes, you could call it that. but i prefer to say that my eyes work independently. i used webmd to find the correct names for what i have. i came up with Strabismus which leads to or can cause Amblyopia. both my eyes work. both my eyes see pretty well (i had 20/20 vision when i was 12!) but one is nearsighted and the other is farsighted.
i had two surgeries as an infant (like before the age of 2!) to fix the problem. the doctors went in and clipped the muscles next to the eyes to try and retract them, or pull them outward. according to the doctors, my surgeries were a success. my eyes pulled out but not too far out. and i can still see.
as a kid, growing up, i didn't notice it so much. i was always in and out of glasses and never really cared how i looked. getting into high school, however, i noticed it more and more. people always asked why i hid behind my glasses. i didn't think that i did. i had them my entire life so they were natural to me. and once i got my braces, they just seemed to fit with the long, lanky, gawky teen i was.
i did, eventually, go to contacts...after i had gained some self confidence. but one morning, while driving to work, i suddenly couldn't see. i thought my contact was in wrong. i took it out while i was in the car. (what? i had gotten good at being able to take them out with one hand!) and i dropped it! when i got to work, i took the other one out too. it was bothering me a bit as well. i knew i would be able to make it through the day without my contacts in, plus it was about time to change them. so no worries in tossing them. i would put my glasses on later.
later never came. in fact, i went all day without anything. i was fine. i realized it the next morning. so, i decided to go that entire day without my glasses. i made it most of the day. soon after that, i noticed that my eyes looked "normal".
why normal in quotations?
remember the picture? my eyes looked like that my entire life. they only time they looked "normal" was when they were dilated at the doctor's office. normal for me is not normal for the rest of the world. something was happening to my eyes. i was a few months away from 23 and i looked, well, normal.
i didn't know how to take it. then it dawned on me. after years and years of prayer, my eyes were Healed.
i was elated. nothing like that had ever happened to me before...that i remembered. i heard the stories of my birth and of those times when i had seizures but i didn't remember them. i do remember this.
and i remember that no matter how bummed or melancholy i want to be on my birthdays that i can't be that way. i wasn't created to be that way. i shouldn't have made it past the first 5 minutes of my life. probably even though my toddler years. (i didn't go into the seizure and other not breathing stories. i don't know them as well!). and if i did make it, i could have grown into a non-confident girl who let her eye problem hold her back and played a victim.
but i didn't.
i wasn't wired that way. yes, there may be some circuits that aren't quite right. but Someone made me the exact way He wanted me. and He decided that i am on this earth for a reason. that alone is enough to make me want to celebrate.
Oh yes, you shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother's womb.
I thank you, High God—you're breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
I worship in adoration—what a creation!
You know me inside and out,
you know every bone in my body;
You know exactly how I was made, bit by bit,
how I was sculpted from nothing into something.
Like an open book, you watched me grow from conception to birth;
all the stages of my life were spread out before you,
The days of my life all prepared
before I'd even lived one day
