Today is my birthday.  I am 29.

It’s kind of hard to grasp that I am ALMOST 30.  My twenties have been great.  I really liked being 28.  A lot of good things happened this past year.  As always, I have been and continue to be incredibly blessed.

I am a birthday person, meaning I look forward to birthdays and I enjoy celebrating them.  Not just my birthday, but the birthdays of others as well.  I really enjoy celebrating life; another year of overcoming challenges, delighting in blessings, and growing into who God would have us to be.  To me, there’s nothing like it.

As I mentioned before, I’m in the midst of planning a wedding (60 days!), and so I haven’t really given much thought to my birthday this year.  I just finished celebrating the hubs-to-be’s birthday (his birthday is August 31), and have been feeling sort of pressed to handle this wedding stuff (those invitations aren’t going to mail themselves).  So, while my natural tendency is to be curious about what the hubs-to-be has planned, I haven’t given it much thought…until this past Sunday.

This past Sunday at church, the worship team was singing a song that I love.  I can’t find it to post it, but essentially, it’s a newer/more modern version of the classic hymn “Great is thy Faithfulness”.  The lyrics are simple:

“Your faithfulness is great.  Your faithfulness is great.  Your faithfulness is great- great is thy faithfulness.  Morning by morning, new mercies I see. Great is thy faithfulness.  Great is thy faithfulness.  All I have needed, thy hand hath provided.  Great is thy faithfulness.  Great is thy faithfulness.”

As I was listening to those lyrics, I began to reflect on what it has meant over the course of my life.

“Morning by morning, new mercies I see.”

Yes, this is true.  But it has been true- for 29 years of mornings.  Do you know how many mornings that is?  Let me help you with the math: 10, 594.  God has provided new mercies for me for the past 10, 594 days- or the duration of my life.

“All I have needed, thy hand hath provided…”

The provision of God has been in, over, and through my life.  God is SO big that He can provide for me at any point of my life, with the knowledge of what is needed both then, and for the future.  God has intricately woven together the fabric of my life in such a way that the provision given from one day when I was 12 can create a necessary life experience for me and the provision He gave as a 26 year old.

“Your faithfulness is great…”

Every day of my life- all 10, 594 of them; God has been faithful to me.  God has been faithful even when my relationship with Him was forced, lacking, nonexistent, growing; when it left something to be desired, God was STILL faithful and didn’t leave me.  Yes, God, Your faithfulness is great.

For the past 10, 594 days…or

254,256 hours…or

15, 255, 360 minutes…or

915,321,600 seconds…

Your faithfulness has been great.  And for that I am grateful.