greatly enriched

It's Monday and actually, it's my birthday. And today I woke up feeling especially old.

I've traded glitter and streamers for cleaning my home after a long week, tiaras and bows for a beadhead fully intact, cute birthday clothes and makeup for the last pair of sweats I own that still fit around my prego belly, presents and wrapping paper for a couple hours of work later to bring in a paycheck... yep, it stinks growing up sometimes!

But honestly, today couldn't be more perfect.

You see, sitting here pumping my kid full of sugar due to a pick-me-up coffee and a birthday cinnamon roll in hand, it got me thinking. I am a seriously BLESSED woman!

Here I am.... completely and utterly healed from my past illness... married to the most self-sacrificing, caring, intentional man I know and getting to genuinely call him "my favorite person in the whole world"... already deeply in love with our first son who we get to meet in just a few short months ... waiting to hear back from the bank on our very own "potential" home that is perfect for us ... and I realize how simply WONDERFUL getting old is :)

This next year of my life will be huge, full of big transitions. It's soberingly scary and magnificently exciting at the same time. But what amazes me is the SAME God who has loved, forgiven, strengthened and showered me with mercy so far is going to be unwaveringly faithful to lead me just the same through this next season of life.

So I'm going to continue to thoroughly enjoy this quite Monday birthday thanking the One who has "crowned my year with HIS bounty". What a fantastic birthday it is.

"You visit the earth and water it;

you greatly enrich it;

the river of God is full of water;

you provide their grain;

for so you have prepared it.

You water its furrows abundantly,

settling its ridges,

softening it with showers,

and blessing its growth.

You crown the year with your bounty;

your wagon tracks overflow with abundance."

:: Psalm 65:9-11 ::

(all the sunset pictures I've taken in and around the town I live in... isn't God so beautifully creative day in and day out?!)