Eighteen years.

♥

Yesterday I turned eighteen. Just like every year, I woke early to the sound of my family singing gathered happily around my bed, followed by warm hugs and birthday cards. Later in the evening mama baked three of my favorite desserts. 

Time, it's true, flies. It feels like only yesterday I used to climb our trees to sit on a branch and eat my lunch. Like only yesterday that I wanted to be a dolphin trainer and a gymnast when I grew up. Suddenly I am eighteen, and this year will bring many changes. I finish high-school in less than two weeks and will be moving away in August for college.

The older I get the more memories I collect. The more I embrace the gift of living- because living is indeed, a gift. But where does gratefulness begin? His faithfulness has sustained me for so long. How blessed I am to have been raised in a Christian home with parents to encourage me daily to become like Christ and abide in Scripture. Blessed to have brothers that love Christ and care for me dearly and a little sister whose smile is contagious and whose hand I can hold when she's afraid. How blessed I am to always have sat around the family table at night and hear my papa read the Word out loud no matter how tired after his stressful day at work. 

How blessed to wake up to mama's warm and freshly baked peach and raspberry scones. Blessed. Blessed to say I live in this kind of home. 

It has been a true gift to see my love for photography grow- to each day learn to see more. To each day become more aware of the beauty and joy in that which I can photograph; the beauty and joy that lies in every thunderstorm and in every sunset, in every wedding kiss and in each pair of eyes that gaze into my camera lens. This is life captured. 

Every day for eighteen years the Lord has given what is good. It is through Him that my lungs continue to let me breathe and my heart continues its beating. It is through His grace that I am this alive. It is through his grace that I have reached the age of eighteen. It is always grace. Grace upon grace upon grace. 

We get old, but may we never shut our eyes to the beautiful and may we never close our ears to hear the Lord's peace that speaks into our hearts. May we always live a life of love and may we never cease to be glad. 

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