What a difference a year makes

A year ago, I turned forty. It was a really challenging thing for me, I think, for the same classic reasons that many people fight growing older. I realized that I was about halfway through with my earthly sojourn, and that I had not accomplished nearly all that I thought I would have by that point in my life.

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Yesterday was my birthday again. And it was a great day. You know why? I have had the windows of heaven opened to me and been so abundantly blessed, and not for the reasons that one might think.

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When I was nine weeks pregnant with Jonah and was told he had not made it, that I would soon miscarry, and then told that I should hurry to the hospital as they suspected a tubal pregnancy and I might need surgery, it was truly one of the saddest moments in my life. It was on the way to the hospital that day, when I should have been in my most desperately low of lows, that I was flooded with an amazing peace. I was overcome with the sense that somehow, some impossible way, everything was going to be alright. I was filled with joy.

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An hour later we were driving home with the new knowledge that all was well, the baby was fine and we could look forward to the birth of our child.

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Some might think that it would be after the good news that I was able to feel the love of God, but it was before. It was before the good news and the successful pregnancy and the homebirth and the celebration over new little Jonah. It was that day in the van on the way to the hospital, during the tragedy and heartache. It was in one of the worst moments in my life that I felt the love of God. And that love was Joy.

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And it hasn’t been until recently that I realized what that moment has come to mean to me. I think that moment was life-changing. Each day since, each time that I think of it, it comes to mean more to me, and the joy of that moment penetrates my life and becomes more a part of who I am.

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Last year I was the woman who had lost four babies. I was turning forty with an empty belly, feeling so broken, and feeling like I had little to look forward to. Today, one month to the day from his birth, I hold my sweet little son. I have the honor or being mama to four other amazing kiddos and the wife of a good, kind man. But I think the biggest blessing of the past year, the one that lingers and continues to grow, is the joy.

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(And this little blessing is pretty darn great, too).

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(Oh, and 41 is a dairy-and-soy-free cake walk!)

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