Today

Today is a gift—as is each day.

Today is also my birthday—the number attached to me goes up once more.

With disbelief and the shake of my head, I muse...I smile...I swallow the tightness in my throat and wonder....

The little girl in this grown up body wonders...

“What happened?”

“I mean...I feel as though I were still 20-something.”

“When did I consent to become a grown up with grown up responsibilities?”

“What happened to my dreams, my longings, my desires, my wishes, my passions....?”

“What happened to all of my time?”

If you are near my age-range (or older :), you are probably smiling and nodding to yourself in agreement.

Perhaps my words of self-focus are enlisting thoughts of sympathy on your part.

I am not sad, nor dismayed. Truly!

These same questions have flooded my mind in birthdays past.  Quickly followed by a sense of lost time and a shadow of melancholy concerning my shortcomings. This year, however, I have come to realize I am on such a beautiful path of purpose that I relish the twists and turns to be unfolded ahead.

The pull of the world upon my flesh has been great. For the flesh does not desire to be molded and made new.

The evil one knows he will fail to get this heart of mine to decry the One true Lover of my soul. But great are his attempts to demean the path I walk as worthless. Adamant is his flaunting of the thrills this world’s path has to offer at a very costly walk.

“If I can’t win her,” he muses, “I’ll render her useless to the Kingdom of my enemy. I’ll plant doubt within her as to her significance to her Creator. I’ll press fear and unbelief so greatly upon her heart that any embrace of agape love will be tightly intertwined with passivity.”

And yet...

“Greater is He who is in (me) than he who is in the world.” 1 John 4:4

“If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed.” John 8:36

And yet... forever and more completely each day—I am free!

And the little girl within?

She wisely acknowledges that “great faith is a product of great fights...great testimonies are the outcome of great tests...great triumphs can only come after great trials.”*

Time has not been my enemy, but my ally in restoration!

The aging, the growing, the passage of time has been fashioning this heart of clay. The dreams, desires, passions and longings have slowly come to reflect those more reflective of Jesus.

My time is not my own. My growth is not my own. Both are established and overseen by the Lord. I rest within His care. I relax in the refinery of sanctification. I rejoice in the days to come. I embrace my freedom.

I walk in the authority that is mine, won with great cost on the walk to Calvary.

I live this special day of mine as every other—lavishly loved and purposefully pursued!


*wise words of Smith Wigglesworth

~Kind of giggling over my choice of words today.  I watched "Victoria & Albert" last night and I always seem to write the way a period movie sounds the day after... :)