Glory (30!)

 

(A birthday letter to my sister, Kiley)

 

If we were chatting it up right now, face to face, wish a smear of chocolate cake across our faces (because who doesn't love chocolate cake for breakfast?) I would tell you a lot of things.  I would tell you that turning thirty was a hard transition for me.  It made me feel old.  I started noticing things that I had never noticed before.  A wiry gray hair, a little hair on the chinny chin chin, gravity doing its thing, even more cellulite.  I wasn't expecting to start feeling older when I turned thirty and I wanted to go back to being twenty nine for like ever.

 

Do you remember coming to see me on my thirtieth?  We went to PF Changs and ate til we could eat no more and then proceeded to stuff our faces with raspberry chocolate cake.  Thanks to you, Amelia, and Mom for coming and helping with the transition.

 

I would tell you to get off your high horse and career and start your family because time is short.  You need to have twenty kids because nineteen is not enough.  You would be the best mom, equal parts spunk and discipline.

 

I would tell you that thirty was the hardest year for me.  Life threw me a curveball and I had to deal with unexpected death for the first time.  I thought I knew who I was and I thought I knew who God was, but a whole new learning curve was about to begin. I cried more tears being thirty than I had my first twenty nine years combined.

 

I would want you to know that out of that grief, something happened.  God took the ashes and turned them into something beautiful.  It was a long process, which is still ongoing, but God proved His supremacy in all things.  He taught me that I don't have to have the answers for everything.  He whispered over this bleeding heart that He has a glorious plan.  A plan that is indeed, good.

 

I would look straight into your big green eyes, seeing you clearly, and tell you that we don't have to see the good in order to believe that He is good.

 

But instead of seeing you clearly, I see you through a sheer white curtain blowing as the raised windows let in the cool air.  I see you in glimpses.  Never a wrinkle.  Never a gray hair.  Never a day older. 

 

You are forever 24.

 

Perhaps I am jealous.  I am the older one.  I should get to see Him first, you know?  That all supreme and all loving and all consuming Love that we both share.

 

What do you see when you look into His big eyes?  I know you see Jesus clearly instead of seeing Him through the sheer white curtain.  I try not to get in a rush down here, wishing terribly I were there.

 

My daughter would have been one on this day.  I know you are a great aunt to her, equal parts spunk and discipline.  Oh how I wish I could squeeze you both.  Eat some chocolate cake with her, OK?

 

happy birthday in Glory, kiki.