So is 29

Today is my daughter’s birthday, she’s eight today. Last night, we did bedtime prayers as usual. I prayed she would have the best day ever today. My eyes teared up as I said the words. When the prayers were over, she asked me why it made me cry. A few tears ran down my face, as I explained that she will only be eight once, and eight is still a kid. I told her being grown up was hard so enjoy every minute of being a kid. She in turn started to tear up. We said goodnight and I left her room. In a short minute I heard, “Hey, Mama.” I poked my head in and she thoughtfully said, “I know that eight is once in a lifetime, but so is twenty-nine.” Insert crying like a baby. If you don’t know, I just so happen to be twenty-nine, and that little girl knows just what to say to squeeze my heart.

Her words struck me so deeply, I could just hear Jesus telling me the same thing I had just told her. To enjoy every minute of it, that I will only be twenty-nine once. I feel like as adults, we get stuck in a monotonous rut, not because we don’t enjoy our life, but because we look at this chapter of adulthood as “the rest of our lives” and we feel like we will have plenty of time to enjoy it, we are always looking for the next stage. We tell ourselves, “when the kids are out of diapers,” “when I have time to keep up with house work,” “when we don’t have so many appointments,” then I will be able to take a breath and enjoy, then I’ll be happy.

It brings to mind Ecclesiastes 3:9-12,

“What do people really get for all their hard work? I have seen the burden God has placed on us all. Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time. He has planted eternity in the human heart, but even so, people cannot see the whole scope of God’s work from beginning to end. So I concluded there is nothing better than to be happy and enjoy ourselves as long as we can.”

Sometimes I wish I knew God’s whole scope of my life, then I could just sit back and watch it play out like a movie. My naturally anxious personality would enjoy that! But He has made everything beautiful for its own time. Whatever my twenty-nine looks like, He made it beautiful for me, whatever your sixty-five or your seventeen looks like, He’s making it beautiful for you! We can’t wait for the next stage or the next year of our life to start enjoying the blessings God has given us.

Maybe you feel like God hasn’t given you anything beautiful to live for, I encourage you to look for one small blessing to find joy in. If you nurture that joy, it will grow and overflow to the other areas of your life and you will begin to see the beauty of our Creator in every crack. Whatever age you are, whatever stage you’re in, remember it’s a once in a lifetime.

This week's song picked by Carrington!