It happens every year once August rolls around. In the days and weeks leading up to my birthday it always seems to hit me that another incredible year has passed, leaving me in a bittersweet place of complete joy and thankfulness for this one wild and precious life I get to live and love. And so, with only nine days left of being 17, I feel desperate to bottle up this moment in my life and remember what it feels like to be seventeen. And happy. Incredibly, ridiculously, terribly, happy and blessed. Life… this life… is such a gift.

I snapped these pictures with my phone the other evening, the one on the left meant as a silly picture to text to my sister away at college to let her know Gracie and I miss her. But for as silly as it may be, I think these two pictures capture a lot of what my seventeenth year has been: joy-filled and sunshiny.

I’m watching dreams come true in this little business of mine that I never imagined possible. Dreams that I was once too scared to speak out loud because of how audacious they seemed. And yet, I can take none of the glory for it. For ANY of it. The Lord has truly blessed the work of my hands, and every gift I have is an extension of his grace, not my goodness. It’s my JOY and greatest goal to point every blessing back to Him, the one who sustains my heart and makes me capable of doing any of this. Without Christ, I am nothing.

I was sitting in church a few weeks ago and it just so happened that that week we were honoring one of our pastors for his 25 years of faithful service to our church and its’ congregation. After we applauded his efforts and showered him in much deserved recognition, it was his turn to speak. In his moment of glory — 25 YEARS of working and serving and working some more, it was surely his moment to take the mike and pat himself on the back, right?! But the passage he shared instead struck me to the core and has continued to in the weeks since hearing it…

Psalm 115:1
“Not to us, Lord, not to us
but to your name be the glory,
because of your love and faithfulness.”

It is my deepest prayer that this verse may be truer and truer of me with each day I am so incredibly blessed to live.