today's my birthday,

and i'm so excited. so excited because last night, once again, dan and i ended up talking about my huge passion of nurturing and loving on babies and young toddlers, and childbirth. (no, i've not been pregnant yet, nor have i given birth, but i have this deep desire and love for natural childbirth. it's the thing i'm passionate about; but i must remember to be even more passionate about the Giver of this passion.) the Lord has been slowly and patiently beginning to reveal this in me for years now, but just recently (like, two-or-three-weeks-ago-recently) really truly opened my eyes to it. i can't stop it from growing, or help from thinking about it, or stop asking anyone and everyone i meet who's a new momma or daddy exactly how they birthed their child. pressing them for every single detail can be uncomfortable, but nine times out of ten they're more than willing to share - because they're passionate about how their little one came into this world. it's fun to get teary-eyed over hearing how the Lord chose to bring another one of His children onto this planet, and realizing more and more how He is blessing people by informing them of what His plan for childbirth has always been.

so if i could ask for one thing in the whole world for my birthday... or, let's go with three, three is good. if i could ask the Lord for three things for my birthday, it would be these:
1. that i can and will be healed of my fibromyalgia and depression to the point of being able to fully experience a 100% natural water birth with my husband someday in the future. my biggest fear is that i will be infertile (an irrational fear, perhaps, but my biggest nonetheless).
2. that my relationship with dan will continue to grow and become a healthy, loving marriage entirely centered on the One who gave it to us.
3. and that my parents will be blessed with all of the financial support they need to go where the Lord is leading them to go, as my relationship with them will become healthier now that i have dan.


and here are some birthday blanks from lauren,

1. birthdays are: one of my favorite things. i love celebrating another person and planning surprises and picking out gifts for them. and i love celebrating mine! i enjoy counting down the days and feeling special.

2. my favorite birthday memory was when my best friend brought over a bottle of her favorite wine for my 21st birthday and we spent some time chatting, and then my parents took me out to dinner to our very favorite place: pf chang's.

3. a birthday tradition i (or my family) has is it's not something we necessarily like to do, but my daddy takes a candle off of whatever cake or pie we might be eating at any one of our birthdays, and after we sing happy birthday, he sings his special song about the next person's birthday. it's corny but i love it.

4. if I had to choose one birthday meal to eat for the rest of my birthdays hence forth, i would choose

5. my birthday is on today! december 23.

6. if i could take a birthday trip i would go probably honduras. it would be incredible to see all of the sweet kiddos i fell in love with on missions trips there.

7. the best gift I've ever received for my birthday was hmm. let me think on this one. i'm not sure, yet.