How this Birthday Girl has received the Greatest Gift... {Life}

I melt into bed praying to be able to fall asleep... 

Fearful if I don't of how this mind could wander for hours. 

Slumber is this sweet release.

On the eve of this twenty-something birthday... while this kind man sleeps soundly beside her... small tears roll out of the corners and onto the pillow.

Backs of hands wet and tired of catching them. 

Sleep eludes.

I may have pictured twenty-six to be different from this. 

Perhaps I would have imagined someone more confident, secure, pretty, together.

Someone who could sleep peacefully.

So how is it, that each day I crawl into bed and I dread how this mind will recall the failures.

This emotional beating that causes tears to roll. 

How I failed at being a wife...

A friend...

Daughter...

Employee.

How a few small tiffs with this man caused an off weekend and he sleeps, but I'm eyes wide open... 

No longer begging for sleep.

But begging for Him.

I look in the mirror and on the morning of this birth day when all should be well... these eyes are wet and swollen. 

I hardly look like a girl celebrating her twenty-sixth. 

I look more broken than together.

More broken then ever.

And is it okay, on this day, to celebrate brokenness? Rather than happiness? 

And how this young woman, with all her flaws, has this tremendous need for Jesus, as I finish the race of this twenty-sixth year.

More in need than ever.

On this day, with burning eyes, this girl unwraps the word... rather than gifts.

Unpacking His love.

Rather than the temporary love things offer.

If there's anything this heart has learned as each birthday passes... is to feel enough, to feel filled up, is to receive His gifts. 

And how quickly I can pull the plug from the drain and watch His gifts empty if I fill this mind with worldly things.

How the mind can twist these things and say you're not enough. 

And oh, how I believe it.

These tears fall and dry, and I feel exhausted.

Like I'm turning eighty today.

Emotionally drained by all these messages and this inner war... pure fatigue from trying to keep up.

So could I just lay down and die to self on this day?

To not focus on how I dress this body, but how I might sacrifice it today? This year?

Endure this pruning, so that I could bear more fruit?

So that I could be complete by Him, through Him, in Him.

On this birth day, I find myself falling to my knees, crushed by the weight of the world.

Could this be where I find the greatest happiness? Like all these texts and Facebook messages say... Happy Birthday. 

Could I find it there in a low place?

These tears dry, and my spirit has emptied all it's been bearing, and I sit here empty. 

And I wouldn't want to be any other way.

Empty and anticipating how He will fill this heart today.

And perhaps I could look in the mirror, with these puffy eyes, and I could say that this is beauty.