29 Years

It's after midnight on April 12, and I enter the final year of my 20's with my 6th baby in my lap, scrolling through the years in photographs.  Time and memories flash before my eyes and I'm wondering how to put it into words, the view from here.

28 years have come and gone and although I often feel like I never grew much past age 18, it's the last 10 years that have defined me most of all.  I realize it, stopping briefly on a picture of me, cradling my firstborn at the tender age of 19.  The truth is, my life began when it became about more than just me.

It was then that, after searching and wondering and seeing life as one big question mark, that I found it: purpose.  And once I did, life began.  My life's purpose is to love and serve others, and to raise my family to do the same.

At 29, by many standards, I don't have much to show for myself.  I don't own a home or my own car.  I still haven't finished school, and I've barely started that book I've been meaning to write.  I don't have a high paying career, or even the thought of beginning one.  My days are spent sweeping, reading, cleaning, creating, cooking, praying.  In a world that values self promotion, there's simply not much here.

But I go to bed each night and pinch myself at just how wonderful this life is - and how blessed I've been.  Through giving myself away each and every day, I've discovered a secret: When  life became less and less about me, it became more.

I'll spend this next year much as I have the last ten, with a prayer to be a blessing to those I meet along the path God has for me.  And the joy of knowing that giving love away merely makes it return, abundantly more than I could have ever imagined.

{Celebrating my birthday today the way I know best, by being with the people I love the very most.  Thank you for being such a blessing in me life, through reading this blog and encouraging me in all the ways that you do!}


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