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What is it about birthdays that can be so hard? Oh yeah…..expectations. Somewhere along the way, either consciously or subconsciously, (and at an age too young to remember), I painted a portrait to accompany each number.

16? A letter jacket donned with many pins and a new set of hand-me-down car keys in hand. 18? A 20x20 dorm room with color coordinated bedding and an out-of-state roommate. 21? High heels and a sophisticated drink in a posh nightclub with lots of beautiful friends. So many of my projections up to this point came seemingly close to my reality.

But it gets a little trickier from there. And whatever self-fulfilling portrait I managed to paint in my mind was thrown out the window a long time ago. Because whatever it is that I thought 22, 23, 24, 25 were going to look like? Well, they didn’t. And on this 22^nd day of July, the same can now be said for 26. Whatever white-picket fence, stabilized career, financially predictable and logical path I thought I would be on…… is nowhere to be found. And to that, I say hallelujah. Because I trust that God is big. Real big. And He is putting this life into motion.

I can’t lie, though. I didn’t have such a peace about my last birthday. 25. In my mind, it sounded like the number had outrun my accomplishments. As if my life was a race and it was my job to actually beat time. Or, even worse, to make things happen in my own time. But this year I have found an identity in having NOT heard a song I wrote on the radio, NOT having children, NOT owning a home and NOT having a job that has benefits. (Medical and dental, I mean. Don’t get me wrong. My job has LOTS of benefits.) And for all of this, and for so many reasons, I am thankful beyond belief.

Because on the morning on my 26^th birthday… in a borrowed house…a man I thought I’d never marry…. woke me up in a city I thought I’d never make it in… and drove me in a car I thought I’d never drive… to a place I’ve never been before. Six Flags over Georgia. A road trip & rollercoasters. Pretty much trumps whatever I would have had in mind. Now that is something worth eating cake for.