Today is my birthday and to be perfectly honest, I have no idea how old I am turning - sure when I take the time to do the math - I will find that I am now 27 - but I'm really not sure how that has happened, how I am ten years out from the girl entering her senior year if high school - about to embark into worlds she had never known. The last age I remember turning was 25 - and I remember being disappointed that my "golden" birthday (25 on the 25th) wasn't what I hoped it would be. And I'm sure that J made the next better as he knew that I had been hurt, and I don't mean to sound ungrateful for the love that was shown on each of those days, but my life is such that I have no recollection of those days - or why I was hurt or happy - I am no longer the priority - I have no grand plans for what I should have for myself - and you know what - it's supposed to be that way.
These are the years of babies who need me to be their everything - these are the years that I'm building their identities and showing them who they should be - and if who I am has to be on hold for a little while so that I can do that - then that is fine with me. I'm not using it as a cop-out or an excuse not to better myself or grow - I am working to better myself and to grow, but I'm working to be better for them rather than for me. I'm reading up on parenting and spirited children and personalities and raising boys and I'm trying to study and grow in the Lord to be a better mother. Not to compete in a Pinterest world, but to provide them with memories that will last a lifetime - to be a better example of a woman of God (so that they know what to look for in a girlfriend and a wife), to be a light so that they will see and know God's love through me.
I want them to see themselves through His eyes and to grow to be men after His heart - and in order to do that - as there is only so little time in a day, in a childhood, and in a lifetime - who I was has to be abandoned - who I used to be has been lost, but who I am becoming - the me I am finding as I travel through the fog of too little sleep, too many dirty diapers, and just enough grace - is who I believe I was always meant to be. It is only through losing yourself and letting go of the reins that you will find who He has always hoped you will be. And she might not be someone you recognize in the mirror, but in your heart you will find that as you become their shelter - you have found your way home.
