Jude turned three yesterday. His birthday is May Day, a holiday without much traction here in the States, but huge elsewhere in the world for various reasons. While May 1 will forever sit in my heart as the day I first held my sweet youngest son, it is also remembered deeper in my soul as the turning point moment when I accepted (again) that I know nothing of the big picture, and that God is to be trusted regardless of my feelings of the events taking shape in my life.
With the weight of my newborn warm in my arms, it was easy to think back over the upheaval of the past year and feel a swell of gratitude. I could have missed this, my heart reminded me. I wouldn’t have chosen any of this. I didn’t choose it. But God knew.
Sitting in a city that was not home, living a life that felt borrowed, I was suddenly washed over with a wave of God’s goodness.
This is what I think as we celebrate Jude’s birthday, the message of that first May 1 birth day inscribed on my spirit echoing louder each year: this is grace.
A husband I don’t deserve, whose love and joy wraps me in a comfort I never dreamed possible growing up. Nine precious children to anchor my days, to laugh with and to watch as they grow. Boys, girls… each one different and unique and exactly filling the space in our family that God designed for them.
A home I adore that fits me like a second skin. Hills, creeks, blue skies that stretch on forever. A place to breathe and stretch and bask in the glory of God’s creation.
Grace. Three years of a little boy whose face splits into a smile a million times a day, whose delight in the simplest of pleasures is contagious. A birthday for a child I never saw coming, in a place I never saw coming, with joy I never saw coming. Once again, I am grateful that my way, my vision, was too small to hold God’s story. His grace truly is amazing.