Tomorrow is a big deal in our household. My little miracle girl turns 7! Wow...Seven. Is it possible? Wasn’t it just yesterday that the director of the adoption agency placed her in my arms at three weeks old? Oh how I cried river of tears on her sweet little sleeping head.

Well, she ain’t sleeping now! As I write this, she is giggling profusely; – though it sounds as if she is trying to muffle the laugh by pulling her bedcovers over her head. She has no idea that I can hear her through the vents that connect her room to mine.

Ahhh...the joys of having a friend spend the night. It’s so much fun! It’s so exciting! It’s so....
...exhausting – for both parent and child the next day. But hey, you only turn seven once. So why not party like tonight’s the last night you’ll ever be six?

I should be cleaning – you know ­– for all the pint-sized guests that will come flooding in here tomorrow, but what’s the point? They’re all sweet lil’ tornados that will carve a path through our home, hyped up on air and enthusiasm. They won’t care if there’s a layer of dust lying around.

No – they’ll be too busy enjoying the party and each other. Playing games and helping rip open birthday gifts. After they’re loaded with punch and sugary goodies, they’ll sound like Alvin & the Chipmunks on helium.

But this is what it means to turn Seven. To be filled with awe and wonder over the simplest of things – to giggle at absurdities, embrace friendships with gusto and aplomb, to fling open the doors of the heart in faith and embrace what is; living in the moment and reveling in it.

Oh to be a child and SEE the world full of hope and great expectations.

No wonder Jesus tells us to come to Him with faith like a child.

I think sometimes we ‘grow up’ and lose our clear eye sight, as each birthday is not overflowing with wonder and mystery, but is filled instead with griefs and regrets of what we “should have done” or have yet to do.

And Christ calls us to lay these burdens down. To see our lives through HIS life with NEW MERCIES EVERY morning. Not some mornings, or in some season down the road.
But every single day we wake up.

New mercies every day.

Oh Lord, may I be filled with the same kind of awe and wonder as a child, and see possibilities every where I turn. Thank you for my sweet Arianna and how she reminds me to embrace wonder and find joy in the every day. In Jesus name, amen.