I have an hour and a half before my birthday and a new year. I have glimpsed into the future and it is full of all that I have in my heart. I look back and wonder at the passing of this year. I know I have learned the depth of God’s love for me and His patience. He has allowed me to stumble through the days and months. I have tripped over my love of earthly pleasures and grasped in the fog of my inattention to important details. I have tarried in places that have made me late–too late–for more glorious spots made for me. Each day the air has been left replete with words and phrases that are waiting to be collected. People I do not know are waiting for me. Those I know and love stand as the greatest testimony of God’s movement in my life.
My friend Ellen Amen once told me that everyone should have one day in which she can do whatever she wants to do. I have done just that on several birthdays. I remember driving across the San Francisco Bay Bridge on a ever-so-beautiful-California day, sunroof open, singing as loud as I could as I headed toward Marin County for one May 24. Tomorrow will be a day of my design. Okay, I will have to go to school, but I get to plan the schedule, remember? Curt has a presentation on Tuesday and Wednesday, so we will celebrate another day. However, Mother thinks we are going out to dinner in Frederick and I will come home to eat chocolate cake with her. I will come home and have the cake, but what shall I do with my hidden few hours? I will leave that for God to lead me. He already knows what will feed my soul and restore my spirit.
For today, I ask only that God watches over His child, as my days increase, bless and guide me wherever I may be. May He strengthen me when I stand; comfort me when discouraged or sorrowful; raise me up if I fall; and in my heart may His peace which passeth understanding abide all the days of my life.
