Sweet 28?

I suppose I can't deny it any longer. In approximately 3 hours, I will officially be 28. Which means that I'm much closer to 30 than it does 20. I'm not hung up on age issues often (unless you consider the fact that I haven't had much reason to be until now), but the big 3-0 that is looming in a couple years is kinda giving me the creeps. I know, I know. Thirty is the new twenty. Forty is the new thirty and so on. I'll be okay with it once it gets here, but I'm just fine with having the next 2 years to prepare.

So, instead of living in the future, let's visit the past. Here are my thoughts on the journey I've been on the past year.

Last year on my birthday I was about 4 months away from having my third baby. I was the proud mother of two 2 year olds and my husband's best friend. Except the unknowns regarding the birth of my son, it truly was a good time in my life. I remember ending 2010 and beginning 2011 determined that this was going to be the best year. The last super, duper, awesome year I had was 2008. Most years have been very good, but 2008 was just so wonderful. (If you knew me then and all you heard about was being gigantic preggo for the first half of the year and then absolutely sleep deprived to the point of crazy the last half, you're just going to have to trust me when I say it was an awesome year!)

Well I think that perhaps my idea of what the best year entailed and what God's ideas about this year were quite different.

I began this past birth year with serious concerns about the health of my Parker. They continued on through the beginning of the year. Then, just as the concerns began to subside from a medical standpoint, my grandmother, someone who I was as close to as possible, had a massive stroke. It wasn't the kind that just changed her physical abilities. She lost much of her ability to communicate. She's still as lively and caring as always and she makes advances in her recovery every day. However, what we did was talk. Everyday. Usually several times a day. Since my last birthday that's changed. Around the same time changes started happening with family members. Some came. Some left. Some just flat out changed. This year has been full of so many struggles.

I remember several times during the past sitting in my bed and crying while asking my husband why. I remember saying why did my grandmother deserve this? Why does my baby deserve to be sick possibly? Why did my family member have to be in such pain? Why?Why?Why?

And like always I don't have the whys figured out. What I did figure out between 27 and 28 is that the whys are much too big for me to understand and all I'm to understand is God's reason for bringing me to these things. What is it that I'm supposed to take from this and learn?

As most of you know, I'm not quick to accept being 'told' to ignore my burning questions and instead focus on what someone else needs me to focus on. Even if that someone else happens to be the God I believe in most certainly. So the way it usually goes between He and I is we play this little game of yes-you-are, no-I'm-not for a few months. On second thought, I'm pretty sure God doesn't play games, especially those kind so its more like I resist, He insists and eventually my heart changes. Isn't that how God things usually happen?

Anyways, my lesson, the biggest thing I've learned that I want to share with you is that I am so much stronger than I ever knew I was last year. I never knew I could stare in the face of fear and say that my God is bigger. I didn't know that when doctors were telling me my son might have organs attached to ones they weren't supposed to be or neurological issues and people I knew were talking to me about 'choices' if my son did have special needs, that I could say that my God was bigger. Bigger than any special need. Any organ attachment. That if this is where my life was going then I'd be there. That my son was mine and it wouldn't matter how many surgeries, therapies, or heartaches. My God and I together were bigger.

I never knew until February 2011 that I could loose the Nanny I knew and be okay with it. And I will say that it took a couple days for me to be okay, but I got there. I didn't know that I could be hopeful when almost my entire family had lost hope. I didn't know that in a time of such saddness, that I could be strong enough to say that Nanny was bigger than a stroke. She was and is much bigger. That both her and her God was bigger. I also didn't know that I could carry on with my day to day life, while being 36, 37, and 38 weeks pregnant and spend a few hours every single day with my Nanny. I talked to her, lotioned her hands, plucked her eyebrowns (because every stroke victim needs good eyebrows you know), manually moved her arms and legs for exercise so they wouldn't stiffen up, and brought something new to decorate her room with just about every day. I didn't know that I could do that. Then once she got to go home, I didn't know that as a mommy of 3 children under the age of 3, one being a newborn, I could make it to visit her once a week. I didn't know I could find the time and the strength to make her meals, remember the things she liked, and try to go out of my way to bring her sentimental things each time. A frame with a picture of her great-grandchildren or a new lip gloss. I'm sure I sound like I'm bragging by now, but let me be clear and say that alone there is no way I could do any of that. As I said, this year I figured it out. God is bigger. Bigger than stroke. Bigger than my doubts and weaknesses. Bigger (if its possible) than my preggo body and its limited capabilities. He made me so that I could do it.

And then as with the family situation, I never knew I was strong enough to handle it. When these types of heartaches have happened in the past, I was so much weaker. I allowed them to control me. I could never exist in a situation and know that someone else's demons and downfalls had nothing to do with me and everything to do with them. I wasn't strong to endure these time without allowing my anger and hurt to tkae over; without allowing it to seep into every fault line within my character making me doubt who I was and the kind of person I wanted to be. You know what I learned this past year? God is bigger than that. God is big enough to rid any doubt. With His help, I've learned that I'm bigger also. That just because those who are supposed to love you and act accordingly don't, doesn't mean they have to take me down with them. For I am loved by a God. When others have let me down, He never did. When other's have shown me that I'm only good enough until something better comes along, He's shown me that in His eyes, there isn't anything better. He's just that much bigger.

I'm naturally just a big picture thinker when birthdays and the new year comes around each year. When wrangling all these thoughts in my head, I realized that while I'm so proud of what I've come to realize and put into action this year, I should've probably wisened up a while ago, don't ya think?!? I mean this isn't exactly rocket science realizing that 1. You are not in control. 2. You are not God. (For the reconrd I realized that long ago.) and 3. God is bigger than it all anyways.

But, since I'm on the slow track to such revalations, I'm just so thankful to be here. In a year that could have sent me right into the deep end, I'm so thankful to be where I am. To feel like I've lived it, accepted it, and thrived through it all.

I'm so thankful that instead of looking back and remembering the year as nothing but negative, that I'm going to know the positive that came from it:

1. I had a son! And oh my goodness there is no other joy like welcoming a baby to your family!
2. My previous acquaintence Michelle became my bestie! A year full of pedicure getting, margarita sipping, shoe sharing, play date having, double date going with a bestie...how blessed am I?!?
3. Just when I didn't think it was possible, my husband and I grew even closer. And while babies and besties are wonderful, there is nothing like getting to wake up every morning with your bestfriend. Nothing like knowing that no matter what any year down the road brings, he will be by my side.

Tonight I am thankful most to my God for getting me through this year with what feels like a little grace and a lot of self-realization. I am so grateful. And second, I'm thankful for my family. Whether you're blood or part of my family of friends, you guys are the creme-de-la-creme of life. And lastly, to my babies. If I could choose 3 people to spend every day with for the rest of my life, no doubt I'd choose my GLP.

I'm not going to pray that 2012 is the best year. Because, best or worst, God is bigger and, at 28 I'm finally okay with that.

So that leaves only one last question...who's ready for cake???