One year.

One whole year.

You can celebrate your little girl’s second birthday, put what’s left of your belongings in a shed, move to Uganda & find yourself throwing a party for the gift of three years with that same girl, only to blink in the realization that she’s lived a third of her life on African soil. 

A year where her wisps of brown have sprung up into curls, bouncing and dancing along with those hazel eyes that seem to spot every six-legged creature and every petaled bloom.

A year where that giant of a will in a dainty little frame makes it’s appearance in such full force that it threatens to single-handedly take out the entire family and you have to keep telling yourself that you’re the Mom.

In a year you can watch your blondie make such great attempts to equal her brother in height that people will often ask if they’re twins, even though almost three years lie between them. 

You can witness that sweetie cautiously coming out from behind her mama’s skirts and gaining the confidence to love anyone God brings across her path, begging you to let her give her stickers and snacks and dolls to those who have less.  

You can listen to her talk a million miles a minute and try to smother your smiles and wonder if anyone’s ever been more expressive and you can watch her grow in communication skills far beyond her age. . .all in a year.

You can mark off a milestone when your boy looses both of his front teeth and when they grow back in you can wonder to yourself if you’re going to be able to make it – this watching your boy grow into a man. 

You can receive the grace of answered prayer as that boy goes from practically no attention span & hating math to telling someone that math is his favourite subject & the ability to complete his school subjects for the day in an hour and a half.

You can lose count of how many lizards he’s caught and you can hope you won’t lose count of how many bikes this kid goes through ‘cause this year? . . . he’s already on his second one.

In one whole year you can move to the other side of the world with the man you love and your belly just starting to show, make a home in a house of Ugandan bricks, sweat it out for the last two trimesters and have your dream birth at home, right in the bush by the Nile.

You can just marvel at the number that is the six of you and you can love that baby so much that you’d die for her and you can watch her be the one that is slipping away in a third world country with holes in her heart.

You can bury her in red earth and feel all those prayers, all those arms lifting you up to Him, until all you feel is held.

And not just held.

Held fast.

And that is what you’ve been.

For the whole of the earth’s last circle around the sun.

And each circle of your life before that.

Held fast.

Psalm 23 and 139 become more alive than ever, because those Words are what you’ve chosen to build a life on.

And when everything spins out of your control and reality and your dreams are about as far as they can get from each other, you find that you’re still standing and it takes you by surprise.

But it shouldn’t, because He’s always been the same.  And it’s Him.  Holding you.

You can look back over a year with relief that you can’t see the future, that you just have to trust him for today.

You can feel an overwhelming joy that although he owes you nothing, he has given you everything.  He is The Giver and He has proved Himself to be just who He says He is over and over. . . so that all your years add up to Him being faithful and you being gifted with more of His glory.

I know it.  Yes. . . I know it.

Because I’ve settled on the far side of the sea.

And I’ve walked through the valley of the shadow of death.

I know it.  He. is. with. me.  And his hand keeps guiding me, his arms don’t let me down.

Yes.

Yes, yes, yes. . .

I. am. loved.

And I. am. secure.

. . . Even here.