A Moment Cherished

If I had known I would have been terrified. I can see now why He keeps things hidden from us until we absolutely need to know.

The LORD our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions. Deuteronomy 29:29

If I had known on this day last year, as my life become thirty, where He would walk me in the 365 days and the 525,600 minutes that were book end by these birthdays, I would have trembled in fear, in disbelief, and I would have told Him NO.

It's walking by a mirror that shows me I'm older, that reminds me where I have been - especially this year. I don't like the new number, no not at all. It is an even harder number to swallow than last year, and I suppose they all will be - each year choking me a bit more and a bit more. But it is through these older eyes that I now truly see, and though the calendar has to keep changing I am learning that it is okay, I am changing to.

Between now and then I have felt the pulling and the pinching, the bending, my Potter has had to take me through. And just when I think I can not take this anymore, it hurts too much I can see Him gently lift His foot to slow the wheel, and He spins my life slowly centering me, only to once again gain speed in order to grow me. All the while He is sponging me with His Word, His truth, gently it seeps into my life, and the drips soften the hidden, hard places. He is an artist, taking His time with me. While it is frightening to be on that wheel, it is comforting to have His hands constant on me. Warm and gentle, large and strong, His hands round out every edge, every corner making me into something beautiful. It's messy and hard, for us both.

The Potter has worked long and hard this year, at times I resisted His touch, but I am starting to see a little bit of what He sees. And that I believe is the secret to growing older, to aging in grace. So maybe I will embrace this new number and throw off the old. I will fix my eyes on the Potter and let Him have His way, and what I will look like next year at this time is hidden from me for now. The hurts, the pains, the joys, the memories, the way He will ask me to bend is not for me to know at this time, and I am okay with that.

I know this much is true that His hands have never left me, never stopped moving over my life, drawing me in, and I know they have so much work left to do before His beauty can thoroughly be exposed in me.

I wait expectantly for that which I do not yet know. Because I know the One who knows.