It's My 21st Birthday!

  Well I'm officially 21! Legal drinking age, I'm married, I have the blessing of a wonderful job and a healthy young family, I have all the necessities, everything I need and a little bit of what I want.  Everything is well with me and my soul.

We're getting ready for my birthday dinner!  And he's
being an absolute goof ball!

  Over the past year, I have grown a lot in the way that I see things.  I have learned the importance of my family and how much I truly love and appreciate them and where we came from.  I have grown closer to each member of my immediate family and I have also added a member to make our own family unit.

  I have learned how to communicate more effectively to people, but also how to really come to the same level of understanding my peers who feel the same hurt I do.  I have watched God move in and work through me to bring others into His comfort and give me peace in the process.

  I have truly learned even greater what it means to trust the Lord.  I have sought Him for provision and had faith that He would be faithful.  Sure enough, He provided - everything I needed and more and He continues to bless me with His overwhelming grace and mercy.

  I have received, yet again, a more specified version of my calling.  Since I have come to college, I know I wanted to serve in the mission field and work with youth.  Over the past few years, the place of mission work has been whispered to me, and the age group I will be working with has been revealed through the strengths God has blessed me with.  Now, the area of youth ministry I am called to is even more specific: counseling youth (and at-risk youth) and their families of crisis.  I have had such a growing heart of passion towards teens and young adults who need the wisdom of God to enter their life and encourage them towards the One who is the Great Physician, the Healer who has love like an ocean, and we are merely trees being caught in the welling flood of His grace.

  I have gotten married in the past year, acquired and started running a new household, gone out on my own and have been trusting God the whole way.

  I have had the best school grades since I was a sophomore in high school, and my age-old lack of self-confidence has grown - ever so slightly - over the past few months.  Even a little bit of growth is a good amount of growth.

  I have wonderful friends whom I love to surround and surround myself with.  I have forgiven even still more people from my past, and I am continuing to learn how to forgive.

  I have acquired skills from God-could-only-have-provided-this jobs in the past year and I have been able to apply these skills to all areas of my life.

  I have learned so much, done so much, grown so much, given so much, loved so much, helped so much, stayed patient so much, learned so much in the past year of my life and I am so thankful for the witness and testimony He has given me through the life He wants me to lead.  Life is still hard, I still mess up and make mistakes, I make decisions that I think are good and may not be in the end, I learn from these things, and I allow God to continue molding me into the person He needs me to be to bring Him glory.  I am the Clay and He is the Potter, and I am thrilled to see all He has in store for me this year.

  Please pray for me to face this next year of my life with a heart of open willingness to grow, with a heart softened to learn from other and grow in the Lord's Wisdom, that I have a mind open to what the Lord has to teach me and that I will trust God even more in the hard times.  Pray that I will always give credit where credit is due, learn from my experiences, good and bad.  Pray that I will never lose sight of who I am and where I came from, that the person I have become will be a witness to the people God intends for me to seek.  Pray that, as I lead my household as the wife, I would be a wise and God-fearing wife, making the best decisions I can for my family, and a good support to my husband.  Pray that I will continue growing in the ways that I have been and that the legacy I leave is not one that is shameful and shady but one that points to God and gives Him glory and honor.  Thanks for being with me and walking through life with me, and I pray that I can be an encouragement to all who know me.

In Christ Alone,
Jessica