this is thirty-eight

I'm thirty-eight tomorrow evening. There's a baby growing in me, doing a lot of kicking, but you can't see the belly very clearly. (We always have trouble with this camera at night. Daytime shots are simply the best. So maybe Joel will take another picture that I can post tomorrow). I enjoy my birthdays and try to make sure each one includes a solitary walk, if possible. Two years ago I walked twelve miles for my thirty-sixth birthday. What a walk and day that was. I was quitting the chaplaincy position (that I later resumed at 40% time) that I had held for 6+ years, and wanted to commemorate this transition by walking the route I had driven so many times before. I felt liberated on my journey. And dehydrated. I didn't take any water with me, and that was a mistake. But it was a joyful journey and that's what I feel on my birthday. I can say with Gerard Manley Hopkins, "...for all this, there lives the dearest freshness deep down things." Birthdays, delights and struggles all come and go. But, above all, there is still life. I am so thankful to have this life to live. And I feel blessed to be carrying another child. An amazing gift on my thirty-eighth birthday eve.