Riches.

Does anyone else find yourself reflecting more when your birthday draws near? Another year down...well, nearly. I was thinking about it last week a little. As I flipped through my Facebook newsfeed of another pregnancy announcement...another wedding announcement...another engagement...it made me sign out of Facebook a little quicker than normal. It just seems crazy to me that so many people in my life who I grew up with, went to college with etc. are in such a different phase of life than I find myself to be. 

God's plan is exactly that...it's His and for my life it's a little different than what I had envisioned as a high school senior or even a college senior.

In that same moment that I was sitting at my desk and all of the sudden I turned over and looked at the wall. My ribbon board is jammed pack with pictures. Faces of family and dear sweet friends. The faces of childhood friend's babies, the birthday spent at Disney World, faces of students that have filled my heart with more joy than I ever knew possible from Michigan to Mississippi and now Indianapolis. My eyes bounced back and forth...a picture from my days in Kenya and the sweet children there--another of my days out on the reservation in South Dakota, my sweet friends in Hillsdale who started my ministry journey with me, my parents and my brother and sister in law at Andrew's graduation for Vet School, and the precious friends that God has brought into my life here in Indy...ministry partners who have taught me so much about selflessness and love. I felt my eyes welling up as I saw the pictures I glance at every day in a different light. Each person...each memory a part of God's plan for me. I wouldn't trade a single piece of it for anything else. I wouldn't want one less photo jammed onto that ribbon board.

In an instant I was reminded of the riches He has showered over me and that my life is not my own it is His. If the God of the Universe can take my heart and life and fill a ribbon board with so much joy and love than I am His and His alone. 

I'm so undeserving and He continues to piece together His plan for me picture by picture...day by day...person by person. My heart's desire is to cling to Him and His will for all He has to come. 

Another year--another chance by His grace to praise Him for the riches and to draw nearer to His heart.

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich."   2 Corinthians 8:9