19th

The special people who gave me the gifts below for my 19^th birthday know that I am crazy with the color blue. And they also know how extremely I melt with words coupled with effort.

Yes, I repeat I am 19 years old, though I don’t feel like it and though I don’t look like it. No kidding.

Setting your disbelief aside, I had other post-gifts aside from the ones above. However, during the exact day of my birthday, I was overwhelmed with the Lord’s gift to me, early that morning of June 3.

I’d say He has lots of gifts to me as soon as I went up to our rooftop to meet Him. The beautiful sky met my gaze as I looked upon the heavens. I could do nothing but stare at it. I could do nothing but stand in awe of it. Smile and wonder couldn’t be taken off my face. And that morning that I turned 19, I did understand what “graffiti skies” meant.

Suddenly, He impressed this on me:  the beauty of the sky reflects how beautiful what He has done and what He will still do in my life.

And then, an airplane appeared in the sky. It was so little but I noticed it. However, the sky is so vast, its beauty can’t be hidden by the airplane. It remained visible, the one noticeable.

It occurred to me that many times in our lives we focus on the airplane and not on the beautiful, vast sky. These airplanes could be in real life: difficulty, sacrifice, pain, failure, discouragement or any other negative thing. However, these airplanes are so little compared to the beauty and vastness of God’s plan in our lives. And we would then want to ask God to set our eyes always on the skies, not on the airplanes.

Well, that was just a glimpse of the sky that overwhelmed me.After receiving this word from him:“Let everything that has breath praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!” Psalm 150:6it was as if He greeted me “Happy Birthday” a hundred times that I kept on saying “thank you Lord” as tears ran down my face.

I asked myself what were my reasons to praise and thank God? And I instead found myself asking “How can I not praise and thank Him for all that He has done in my life?” I was overwhelmed with God’s presence. I felt so grateful and no words can better express what I felt but a hundred “Thank You Lord”.

It was crystal clear. Having the Lord in my life is the best gift I have. Having Him made my 18 years in life blessed and favoured. And this 19^th year ahead I believe will even be more blessed and favoured. For that, I will continue to offer Him endless “thank you” and praises.