Thirty-Four Years l Freely Loved

I have travelled around the sun thirty-four times today. Thirty-four years since I took my first breath. Thirty-four years since the day I was born into the world.

Birthdays.

They have not all been easy.

I remember my thirteenth birthday and the joy I felt that day.

But I also remember the many birthdays after that when I would spend the day wishing that I was not alive. When I was twenty-five, I could not imagine living until I was fifty. I had no desire to do so. And I told God so too. I remember my birthday five years ago. It was a horrible one. My phone flooded with birthday messages. Our house was filled with family. But all I could do was sit in my room and cry. And wish that I was dead. The memory makes me cry again. The depth of depression I was living in is unexplainable.

Now, today I could sit in my apartment again and cry. I could. I could shame and condemn myself for only now moving ahead in life like I should have when I was eighteen. I could recount all the years I lost.

But instead I choose to claim the words in Joel 2:25+26:

The LORD says, “I will give back what you lost…Once again you will have all the food you want, and you will praise the LORD your God, who does these miracles for you. Never again will my people be disgraced.”

So today I choose to look back on the last four and a half years instead.

And I choose to recount the work God has been doing in my life.

The place I am in today is completely unrecognizable in comparison to what my life was like in 2021.

And I am silenced into awe.

The work God is doing is so incredible.

He has healed my broken heart.

He has delivered me from my depression.

He has placed me in a community of safe people.

He is bringing me into the purpose of the calling He has placed on my life.

Truly God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

Hebrews 11:6

And truly He can be found when we seek Him.

Jeremiah 29:13

Death could not hold me.

God breathed His life into me.

Today I live...for Him!

Thirty-Four Years

Birthdays.

The LORD says, “I will give back what you lost…Once again you will have all the food you want, and you will praise the LORD your God, who does these miracles for you. Never again will my people be disgraced.”

And I choose to recount the work God has been doing in my life.

And I am silenced into awe.

Truly God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.

And truly He can be found when we seek Him.

God breathed His life into me.

"It wasn't for nothing -

The pain and the waiting.

I heard when you called me.

I promise I'm using

The hurt and heartache

For who you're becoming.

So you can look back and say:

It wasn't for nothing."

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