Swiss men vote down female suffrage, Buddy Holly et al are killed in a plane crash, termed The Day the Music Died, Fidel Castro takes over Cuba;
Barbie Doll debuts, the Dalai Lama flees Tibet and gets asylum in India, Hawaii statehood is approved;
NASA introduces first US astronauts, Japanese Prince Akihito marries Michiko Shoda, Stephen Harper is born;
Soviet forces arrive in Afghanistan, two monkeys successfully return to earth from space;
Singapore becomes a self-governing British crown colony, US sub first carries ballistic missiles, the first telecast is transmitted from England to US;
Canada and the US open the St. Lawrence seaway, Cayman Islands separates from Jamaica, Indonesia restores constitution, Great Britain starts using postal codes;
I am born.
Right time. Right place. Right circumstances. Everything about my birth was just the way God planned it.
It didn't matter what was happening with the rest of the world. I was destined to be born for such a time as this.
Even when some adults joked that I was picked up from some banana grove ("Napulot ka sa sagingan"), or worse, from the dump ("sa basurahan"), mean but common jokes back then, I felt welcomed and special.
But I used to wonder where I was before my birth. Some joked, "Diyan sa taas ng mga puno (There at the treetops)." Ah, things adults said. I often ran to my parents to check them out.
So really, where was I before my conception?
I know. In God's mind.
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.
Psalm 139: 13-16, The Message
