24 in 2016

Birthday Sale

Don’t even get me started…I know that I was born only 12 hours before the best day of the year. My mom couldn’t just wait 12 more hours for me to be born on Leap Day! That’s right, I was born on February 28, around 12:00pm. Despite my bitterness about not being born on February 29, able to claim that I’m only 6 years old, or being able to choose when I want my birthday to be on most years, I’m so grateful that God has given me 24 wonderful years of life so far.

Birthdays have never been all that retrospective for me. This year is different, though. I’ve never been 24 before and 24 comes with the realization that I’m not in control of my life; the plans that I had, where I thought I’d be, is somewhere totally different. And that’s OK.

When a control freak realizes that life isn’t easily controlled, things get messy. That’s been my life for the past few months, and I’m slowly coming to terms with the fact that the plans I had weren’t half as good as what God has planned for me. I just started reading Deuteronomy, in the Old Testament. I’m in chapter 4 where Moses is essentially making his last speech before he dies and he’s warning the people that if they stray, if they worship other gods, that they will be scattered among the nations. They will no longer be in the land that God has graciously and miraculously, given them. But then he says this:

29 But when you’re there, you’ll look for the Eternal your God. If every part of you is invested in the search, heart and soul, then you’ll find Him. 30 When you’re in trouble in those days yet to come because of all these things, you’ll come back to the Eternal your God, and you’ll listen to His voice. 31 He is a compassionate God. He won’t abandon you or destroy you or forget the covenant He made with your ancestors—He swore to them that He’d keep it!

So, even when I screw it up and go after my own plans, when I realize where I went wrong and truly invest myself in finding God again, He’ll let me see him. The promises that God has made to me, through Jesus, are always true. My past few months really have felt like wandering, but God has let me find Him again, and this birthday seems appropriately timed it really is something of a new birth in my life.

Sometimes you have to wander in the desert and trust that the Promised Land actually exists. Sometimes you need to suffer through the wintertime to get to the spring. In fact, that’s something I’ve always really liked about my birthday, that it’s right at the point where you’re about to give up, winter has been too long, too hard, too frigid; but then there’s a sunny day in the middle of the blizzard. Hope of new life emerging from the frozen ground. 


Birthday Sale

In celebration of my birthday on the 28th, I’m giving you 28% off of all of my patterns today through March 1! That includes PDF, Hard Copy, and Pre-Orders (and I just added some fabulous spring patterns, so be sure to check them out)! Make sure to get yours today, just visit my shop and make sure to enter the Promo Code Happy24 at checkout.

 

 

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