Two decades makes for interesting things...

Thank you everyone who has so sweetly wished me blessings today. :-)
Oh, happy birthday to me. *tosses confetti*

I love to cook, and I should've been Italian. :-) That's just what I've gathered with five senses and I'm stickin' to it. Usually if I make crab manicotti just fast and easy, it has merely a vegetable and butter bread to go along with it. But today, December 17, Jen was moody for a feast. So I packed stir-crazy Jaelyn up to go shopping for food! When I got home I baked a birthday cheesecake, and at about 4:45 embarked on suppa. We had the crab manicotti with a butter asparagus vegetable medley, a loaded salad, and artesian bread knots.
Then, of course, the *hallelujah chorus rings* caramel pecan cheesecake.
I won't eat for a couple days. :-) This brought me joy I've not known in a very long time.

20 years...and a few hours. Looking at all the tiniest molecular aspects that have woven my life to this very moment: milestones, people, places, burdens, seasons, blessings, and sufferings. From childhood, to girlhood, to whatever you'd call me now. These monstrous little things that have each been a thread in the tapestry of who I am now, or an aspect of the climax in this story. I look to the heavens and wonder...did the Lord God look down upon this curly-headed little blonde 20 years ago, and "interesting" be my destiny? Interesting, for lack of a better word.
Of your life, He's planning something. Do you grasp that? (I ask because I only just did) Do you, precious of God, look over your life and laugh...wondering what in the world He has in mind? I do. With how confused and blind I've become, I wonder, wonder, wonder. Like a child of dreams: this child knows what shape and form their deepest desires are. And then God gift-wraps their destiny...and it's in a different shape, with a big ol' bow nonetheless. As a child of carnal nature, you can't help but be heartbroken at first. Dear one, cling to the promise that it will be greater than you could ever have dreamed...no matter the outcome of your life. No matter the paths you'll take, the wildernesses you'll cross, the destinies you'll fullfill.
When I'm in my last breaths, how will I see my life as I look over it?
Blessed.
Not because Jen had good things, but because I had terrible things too. Because my Abba was in it with me, and nothing He's placed before me I cannot bear. He will bear it with me.
Paul challenged to take joy in your suffering--it's easy to joy in joyful things. It's faith to joy in things that are less than what we'd desired.
Even still, I don't deserve the seasons He's asked of me. So many have suffered more than I, and still come out singing praises to God. Can't I, whose been carried by Him in the little things I suffer, praise Him with every breath within me? I may never understand what exactly He's doing in the depths of me, but there's no living without Him. Love is worth any fall upon the invisable, as unlogical as it seems.
"...I may never understand the depth of what You've done inside, but I know I won't find any worth apart from You..." --Jeremy Camp

This has been a soapbox/heartbearing session for myself more than anything. :-) But thanks for bearing with me. Praise Him...He Who is in me and with me, and greater than anything in this world. :-)