itsawonderfilledlife

My daughter turns twenty-one today …

I have a daughter who turns twenty-one today?????

How could this be?

I am barely forty (with four years experience)!

For me, turning twenty-one means truly being an adult. Although you could legally vote and drink alcohol (hopefully not at the same time) when you turned nineteen, it is twenty-one that is the age that sounds like you are no longer ‘trying out’ adulthood, but you have arrived.

Speaking of having arrived, what a gift your arrival was to your dad and I, twenty-one years ago. For days and weeks (and yes, even now) I would look at you, staring into the deep blue pools of your eyes, amazed that you came from me, amazed …

Your safe arrival into our arms and lives was a symbol of hope that two years earlier seemed far away …

… symbols of hope have a way of doing that.

Speaking of hope, that is my message to you on this, your twenty first birthday.

According to http://www.freedictionary.com, to hope is “to wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment.”

I would alter the definition to say :

hope is the expectation of joy, and that expectation brings an unexpected joy even before the hope is fulfilled

And, when the doctor lay your wet, newborn body in my arms, our hopes were fulfilled.

Speaking of fulfilled, that is what I feel in having you as my oldest daughter … fulfilled. I remember well the Thanksgiving in 1995, when I was confronted with the very real reality that there might not be any more Mini Wheats ( 😉 ) in our family. I remember being confronted with the question, “can I be content in being mom to one?” My dear, there was no delay in responding my joyful, “yes.”

yes … I am content
yes … I am fulfilled
yes … I have joy

My thanksgiving for you is endless, never-ending.

And speaking of never-ending, my love for you is never-ending, unconditional, and it goes with you, wherever you may go, and whatever you might do with your life.

You have the joy, of the expectation, that you are stuck with me … whether you like it or not.

I will love you, forever.

But, as you already know, and have had the joy that comes with expectation, with hope …

My love for you, any human’s love for you, will never provide the joy, the hope, that Christ provides. It is in Him that we can have “confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1).

What a great hope we have! Now lets celebrate with joy of what is expected 😉

“My hope is built on nothingless
Than Jesus blood and righteousness
I dare not trust the sweetest frame
But wholly trust in Jesus’ name”

Cornerstone