To My Jayla Joy on Your Birthday....

This past year I have watched, many days through tear-stained cheeks, as the Lord has expanded your capacity to love others unconditionally and in total compassion. You lost your position as 'little sister', you've had to learn to share your Daddy and Mommy with two complete strangers who weren’t in your life one day, but were there the next. Your world as you knew it completely changed as over and over again God stretched you to ‘lay down your life’ at a 4-year-old level for your new sisters. The days felt hard, we felt overwhelmed and beyond our limits, and most certainly have wrestled through the sacrifices. BUT God - He did something so beautiful in the midst of it all. I see it now. It’s in His truths that you now proclaim with certainty because you’ve lived them and they’ve stood firm, it’s in the confidence that you now have in Him, it’s in the songs that you make up and sing of His character, “God will never leave you, He is always with you, you can always trust Him…” Such beauty has unfolded in you through this all, that now my hope for you is this: not that God would shield you from heartaches and trials, but that in the difficulties your need for Him would be exposed. May you always walk through life with the conscious awareness of how desperately you need your Savior. So to my rainbow lovin, gymnastics tumblin, mercy showin, late night mom and dad’s bed sneaky-in-snuggler....Happy 5th Birthday....it has been a blessing to walk this path alongside you!!!  I love you! ♥