Wow. If words could only describe how insanely and
beautifully and undeservedly blessed I have felt today. I truly am having a
hard time using mere Earthly words to say how special and how loved I felt
today as I celebrated by 20th Birthday. I love celebrating other people’s birthdays. I love obnoxiously
singing Happy Birthday to them, I love writing them cards, I love letting
everyone and their brother know when someone has a birthday and I love making
them feel special. However, I have a really hard time accepting the love when
it circles back around. I love to love people. Period. And while it’s amazing
and such a blessing to receive so much love back, I have struggled all day to
feel deserving of this love. And my conclusion is that I am not. No one
deserves to be loved in such a beautiful way. But then I realized that this
beautiful picture, is just a glimpse at how BIG God loves each of us. How crazy
is it to think about that? God loves us more than we will ever be able to
comprehend. This absolutely blows my mind when I stop to think about it. The
greatest love we have ever felt doesn’t even come close to being the same love
that the Father has for His children. I am so humbled and so thankful for the
love and blessings my family and friends have absolutely lavished upon me
today. What is even more of a blessing though, is that it doesn’t have to be my
birthday to know that I am loved. I am blessed to have such affirming and
loving people who celebrate and do life with me every single day. What an
unbelievable blessing it is to go to sleep each night knowing without a doubt
in my mind that I am loved by the amazing people in my life and that I am loved
by my Heavenly Father more than I can fathom.
A few things that made this birthday
(week) so special was getting to celebrate with my precious family, my sweet
sister, and my amazing friend, Jen.
Incredible Family…
Saturday we went to Louisville to
celebrate the “September Birthdays.” It was so fun to celebrate my cousin,
uncle, and my birthday with our amazing family. I never take for granted the
time I have with my family and always enjoy laughing, talking, and hugging on
my wonderful family. And an added bonus was that my Nana and Aunt Kathy came to
celebrate as well. Super wonderful to spend time with my family…that in and of
itself was the best gift I could have received. After we got back from
Louisville, Darin surprised me by taking me to my favorite movie Finding Nemo
in 3D. Oh yes, I celebrated my 20th birthday by watching a Disney Pixar
movie…and I loved it. My birthday week continued on Sunday when my parents, Darin,
and I went to PF Changs and enjoyed a very delicious lunch/dinner. So tasty!
My Sweet Sisterbear…
On Wednesday, Rach treated me to a smoothie, a pedicure, and
dinner at McAlister’s. Oh it was SO wonderful to spend time with her and get
caught up on life. Our time together has been super limited this semester since
we are both so busy, so it was especially special to just talk and be pampered
together. She is such an amazing blessing in my life and I am trying to soak up
every moment I have with her these next two semesters. I know she will always
be my sister, but I am also not naive in thinking that things will change when
she graduates and gets married. SO, all that is to say that I am enjoying the
sweet times we are able to enjoy together, just the two of us. Love my sweet
sis.
Krispy Keme and Fountains…
Wednesday’s are one of my favorite days out of the week and
that is because I get to spend time with my precious freshmen for Shift Group
and get to see my amazing friend, Jen each week. Jen and I decided at the
beginning of the year that we would get together every Wednesday for much
needed talk/laugh/chill time. I absolutely love my sweet Jen-Bear. Our time
together is what I look forward to all day on Wednesday and am filled up and
ready for my longest day of the week, Thursday. It’s so great that I can’t even
put it into words. This Wednesday we decided to have a spontaneous
adventure and went to Krispy Kreme and proudly wore our hats the entire time
and laughed so hard at everything. We were both in particularly silly moods and
therefore were ridiculous together. After we enjoyed our sweet treats, we decided
to continue the adventure and go to Triangle Park (a little park in the middle
of downtown). So, we just walked around and took pictures and continued the
hilariousness. It was so great to celebrate with her and just spend time with
her.
And now I will tell you a story that I am not proud of but
have a feeling it will bring some joy to those who read it…
House Scare…
Okay so after Jen and I went out, she dropped me off at
home. I was home alone since my sweet housemates have their Core Groups on
Wednesday night. SO, I went upstairs as usual and was getting some things done
and decided that I was thirsty and would go downstairs to get a drink. When I
got downstairs, I saw that our back door was ajar and unlocked. Okay, now I
must preface this story by saying that I had watched Taken on Saturday (and had
been super terrified) and watched Hawaii Five-O on Tuesday. SO,
naturally my brain jumped directly to freak out mode. I scooted one of the carts
in the kitchen in front of the door (since it wouldn’t lock) and bolted up the
stairs and locked myself in my room. After securing the door, my brain jumped
to assuming that I had just locked myself in with “the bad guy” that was of
course prowling around in my room. So, I then checked my closet, under my bed,
and patted my curtains to make sure he was not there. After I had surveyed my
room, I called my housemates and asked them when they would be returning home.
After about 15 minutes had gone by, Lydia finally got home and we checked the
rest of the house…partially joking but partially not. Each time Lydia would
open a door or the shower curtain, she would scream and I would squeal every
single time. So ridiculous. After Katelynn returned home, we learned that she
had been cooking that afternoon and had thought she had closed and locked the
door but hadn’t quite closed it (the door is hard to close to begin with). SO,
all of that is to say that my mind goes wild when left alone. Ha!
Two Decades…
Okay, now about my beautifully blessed day. I just want to
take a minute to brag about the ridiculously amazing people in my life…hope you
don’t mind. I have the most amazing, gracious, generous, beautiful, Godly
people in my life. My family and friends went out of their way today to make me
feel loved and special. And they succeeded. Big time. Here are 20 things that
made turning 20 so special today…
1. My precious momma drove down to have breakfast with Rachel
and I this morning. We went to this cute little restaurant called Josie’s early
this morning and enjoyed a delicious breakfast and wonderful fellowship. I am so thankful to have been able to start the day off celebrating with mom and so appreciate her waking up super early to drive to Lexington just to spend a little bit of time together. She is just amazing. (Dad is amazing too...can't forget to mention him! ;) He was traveling the day of my birthday but celebrated before and after with us and made me feel so special.) I love my parents.
2. My first class of the day on Thursday’s is a two-hour
biology lab…which I do not enjoy...at all. BUT, that’s not what made today special. Ha! Usually this class runs over because of excessively long lab reports, BUT
today’s lab report was only four pages long and I got to leave 20 minutes early. So
that made me super happy! It's the small things...
3-10. My sweet boyfriend, Darin (I’ll talk about our story soon, I
just couldn’t let this day go by without mentioning him!) drove down to visit.
Oh he is just the sweetest. I’m going to brag about my sweet boy for just a
minute so bare with me...
He came and picked me up from class (3) this afternoon and brought me to a wonderfully delicious Italian restaurant (which is my favorite kind of food) (4)…where he had already been to surprise me with flowers on the table when we got there (5). After we ate (which was delicious), we went to the Arboretum (6) and walked around and enjoyed the glorious sunshine (7) (the forecast had said it was going to rain all day…instead God decided to smile down on us), beautiful flowers (8), and wonderful company (9). He also gave me the most precious and generous gifts (10). I am so undeserving of his generosity and love but I am so thankful for him and am loving getting to do life with him. He is so wonderful and made me feel so special on this special day...and every other day too!
11. I convinced my art teacher that he should let us leave
early…1 hour and 20 minutes early. Oh yeah!
So here’s the story- At the beginning of class, Mr. Cox told us that we would have options for the day and would get to decide what we wanted to do for the evening. After he gave the options (none of which were too appealing), I told him that there should be another option of leaving early since it was my birthday. And he totally bought into it! After wishing me a happy birthday, he told us to turn our papers in, sign in, and have a great evening....after having 10 minutes of class. Oh. Yes. Happy Birthday to Me. Haha.
12. Since my art class was cancelled, I got to go home (which I
hadn’t been to since 7:30 this morning), which was super nice and relaxing. It
was so great to be able to just rest and relax with my sweet housemates and get
ready for Synergy. Also, when I got back home, I was surprised with a very
sweet surprise from my sweet sis, Jamie. AND, I walked upstairs to my room and
saw a cute little sign from Miss Lydia. So blessed by such precious housemates.
13. During my time at home, my sweet Nanny and Pappy called
which was a definite highlight of the day. My favorite line of my conversation
with my Pappy was, “well, I could sit here and talk to you for another hour but
I know you have other things you need to be doing.” What I loved so much about
that statement was that I would have loved to have as well and was sad to hangup. I assured him that
I would call him sometime soon and we will have our hour-long talk. I love my Nanny and Pappy. So much.
14-15. Synergy. It was so fun to have a birthday on the day that I
go to Synergy! I absolutely loved and was so humbled by the love and birthday
wishes I received from the moment I walked into the building to the time I
left. I got so many hugs, high-fives, and sweet wishes that I am still smiling
about it. AND, my sweet Core Group leader gave me the most perfectly princessey
card (14). It was also so awesome to get to worship on my birthday. While I had
been thanking the Lord all day for the incredible blessings He has showered
over me, I loved getting to sing praises to my Father. I loved getting to sing
loudly and in awe as I continued to try to wrap my mind around how great God’s
love is (15).
16. After Synergy was over and after we
stayed after to talk and enjoy great fellowship with great friends, we realized
that the rain had finally come and that it was pouring outside. Being the
innovative thinkers that we are, we decided to wear garbage bags as protective
dresses/hats. Oh yes, we were styling and profiling and laughing all the way to
the car.
Does this Garbage Bag Make Me Look Fat?
17. When we arrived home, I came back up
to my room to put some things away and was bombarded by two of the sweetest
housemates on the face of the Earth as they sang “Happy Birthday” while holding
the most delicious completely homemade Italian Cheesecake with strawberries.
Y.U.M.
18. After we had stuffed ourselves with
cheesecake, we decided that it only made sense to interpretative dance to
appropriately break in the new year. That was a sight for sore eyes.
Fortunately for everyone else, we did not videotape that action…there are just
some things you can’t unsee.
19. Facebook, while incredibly
distracting, sure makes someone feel so loved and special on their birthday. It
was SO humbling to be wished a "Happy Birthday" by the people who mean the world
to me. Every time I opened my email throughout the day, I was blown away by the
love I had the honor of being the recipient of.
20. The last but certainly not the least
thing that made this day so special was the phone calls, texts, and tweets I
received. Goodness gracious, you all sure do know how to love someone.
I could go on and on but will stop
there since 20 seems to be the theme
of the day. Ha! Needless to say, today has been an absolutely amazing day and I
am completely overwhelmed at how gracious the Lord is. I am looking forward to
seeing what He has in store for this next decade and am so excited to see how
He uses me, teaches me, and grows in me.
