Everyone is special

My family has a tradition of celebrating Special Days. It started with my husband and I because we like to buy each other little gifts. We also don’t like the silly focus on how old someone is that comes along with birthdays. So we celebrate Special Days several times a year. It’s a surprise because your Special Day falls on whichever day the family has decided to honor how special you are.

I love how it reminds me to show my appreciation for my family members frequently. And isn’t that the best part about birthdays — to honor someone’s unique, God-given identity?

I don’t think God knows about our age or personality or what color hair we have. I think God has a completely different view because God isn’t like man, God is a Spirit. The one and only Spirit. Infinite Life. Everlasting Love.

It’s nice to know that there is One out there who is seeing us as we really are — spiritual, unique, and free; Her adoring image & likeness; The reflection, the mirrored image, of the Perfect One.

I hope to see everyone around me the way God sees us today: made of beautiful, shining qualities radiating & shining out to warm & bless everything around you.

Redefining longevity: the new centenarian spirit

I Love the Monitor’s issue on those living over 100! It’s wonderful and I’m so happy to see possibilities opening up for everyone! And to know that it’s so much about our outlook and attitude.

via www.csmonitor.com

As a model of longevity, Elsa Hoffman 102 – with her great-grandaughters Blair (l) and Elsa Textor-Black – says there’s nothing “I say I can’t go to or don’t want to do.” This centenarian’s version of slowing down in the past decade is to limit her travel to places near her Florida home – South America, for example.