AK, I hope you will forgive me for being two days late with your "birthday eve" letter for the first time ever. I think you will, because the reason I was late was because we were off skiing and hiking and horseback riding and splashing in creeks. In fact, I can't think of a more perfect way to celebrate your 12th birthday.
A weekend full of fun and adventure was exactly right, because you are all about fun and adventure. You are motivated by fun, and you bring fun with you wherever you go. I teach your grammar class at school and it is hopeless to try to keep a straight "teacher" face when you crack the most off the wall jokes. I love talking with you in different accents in the car. You love making people laugh, and you are good at it.
You have mad skills when it comes to creating anything out of anything. I am terrible at planning things like Halloween costumes or Valentine's boxes for school, but it's fine because you can take a cardboard box and make a vending machine costume complete with snacks to share with friends, or a human size tree complete with a hole in the trunk to deposit Valentines. Your fingers move faster than I can even follow with my eyes when you are crocheting, and you can turn a ball of yarn into a small woodland creature before I even realize you are working on a new project. You are a night owl and stay up later than me, dreaming of new things to create.
You love acting and soccer and piano. You have rhythm in your bones and have played percussion twice now in front of a crowd, once with me at the widows' banquet at our church, and once with the band at youth group.
You are most at home when you are helping. You wear your feelings on your sleeve. You love all animals, especially dogs and horses and axolotls (???), and they love you too. Well, I don't know about axolotls, but definitely horses and dogs love you. You are beautiful and fun and precocious and deeper than people might realize. You are growing in every way. You are one of the best gifts I have ever been given.
I see the image of God in you - in your joy and laughter, in your skill and creativity, in the way you help others, in your music and emotions. My prayer for you on your 12th birthday is that you would live in all the blessings of one who knows, loves, and fears the Lord, and that you would be fully convinced of who you are and whose you are.
Happy birthday, my sweet 12-year-and-1-day-old!!!
AK is indeed, a lovely young lady....a joy to know. It's amazing to see the ways she creates animals from yarn (crochet)...not to keep or collect but to give to a specific person for a specific reason...
ReplyDeleteShe's good with her pets, fairy gardens, and kindness... I'm so fortunate that the Shugart family became our neighbors because we get to see these lovely children grow up.