Day breaks, and my husband Tony is ready to get going.

He usually begins with some kind of breakfast, after which he will read the newspaper and play a rousing game or two of Spider Solitaire on the computer before hopping into his golf cart and heading to the club house to team up and play eighteen challenging and joyous holes of golf.

This he does every morning of his life if we’re in town and it isn’t sleeting. Or, to be fair, this he does if someone doesn’t need him for something before one in the afternoon.

The morning of my sixtieth birthday, Tony was kind enough to linger in bed with me awhile before throwing back the covers to embrace the day.

When I opened my eyes on the morning I had been dreading my entire 59th year and realized that I had, in fact, lived long enough to be 6-0, I groaned.

Of course, somewhere underneath the angst, I was thankful still to be alive, with things yet to experience and accomplish before this mortal puts on immortality, but I’m sorry to say, dread trumped gratitude.

My only defense for such a poor attitude is that the most down-to-earth Christian woman I know told me across the pew one Sunday when I was 58 or 59 that turning sixty had been her hardest birthday. Thanks, Dorothy, your confession was salve for my wounded ego as I prepared to slither through this birthday with so little grace and dignity.

“Tony,“ I muttered, when my foot discovered he was still beside me that wretched morning. “I don’t think I can do this.“

He laughed and said, “Sure you can, Slick.“

He’s sure we can do anything.

I appreciate his confidence. It was a lot better than saying, “I don’t think you can either, Slick.“

Nevertheless, I need more than his reassurance to make this transition into what Jane Fonda has called Act Three.

Just over fourteen years ago, I remember receiving a call from my older daughter, Stacey, who had been married only four months.

“Mother!“ she exclaimed. (This was frightening as she always calls me “Mom.“) “Come over here and tell me if you think this is a plus sign.“

Five minutes later four of us were in our daughter’s little kitchen gathered around the table looking down at the most obvious plus sign I’ve ever seen. Our first grandchild was on his way.

I wanted to shout, “Woo hoo!“ But sensitivity to Stacey and Steve’s faces and body language kept me from saying or doing anything remotely celebratory. Instead we calmly reassured them that everything was going to be fine.

(We could wait until we made our getaway before rejoicing over the fact that soon, by God’s grace, we would begin loving and teaching “their children after them.“)

Stacey, after briefly processing just a smidgen of what this plus sign would mean, pointed at her dad and me and said, “We’re not in this alone, you know!“

Tony and I smiled.

“Of course not.“

And for sixteen years now, she hasn’t been. Neither has her sister, Leanne. Tony and I have been thrilled to help them any way we can.

As I lay in bed on that ominous birthday, overwhelmed at beginning this unfathomable decade of my life, I prayed a prayer much like what Stacey had said to us all those years ago: “I’m not in this alone, Lord.“

I uttered that prayer with great respect and confidence. If I’ve learned anything in the last sixty years, it is this: he will be glad to help. “I will never leave you or forsake you” is my theme verse; “Great is the Faithfulness,“ my theme song.

For this reason alone, I was willing to get up on that December 14th. That and an 11:00 doctor’s appointment.

As I’ve said—in this blog, in my articles, and in my novels, the loving and faithful presence of God in my life is my “astonishment”; it is the theme of my life.

Today if you didn’t want to get out of bed for a small reason or a very large one, I hope you remember that you are loved and you’re not in this alone.