What a difference year makes

When we are young we think we are grownup at ten, adults at eighteen and old at thirty. I believe this is a result of our limited experience with time. When you've lived eighty years one year is less than two percent of your life. When you are twelve it's just shy of ten percent. That's a big difference!
As you mature you realize that you never really feel like a grownup. I've lived about four years of what I consider my adult life. (No, I'm not considering myself an adult at eighteen, far from it actually). None have brought more changes than this most recent one.
For those of you who know the story you know that this time has been one of the most trying of my life. Kirk and I thought we were strong when we made it through six years of a long distance relationship. Little did we know that we would soon be faced with surgery, an interstate move, job layoffs, and personal loss in just 15 short months.
Both of us believe things happen for a reason yet we struggled to come to terms with why we were having so many trials in the first two years of our marriage. I often said 'I love being married, but man does this suck!' Let's just say that in three years of marriage Kirk and I have yet to celebrate our anniversary.
In August of 2009, after a very difficult July, we joined a 'life group' and the next month we helped to seed a new campus of Cokesbury church. Little did we know something else had also taken seed. As we helped to grow a church congregation and ourselves in the process, I was growing a tiny baby Whit.
Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a time if joy was, for me at least, filled with uncertainty. It took several months after I discovered I was expecting for me to feel at ease that everything was going to be ok with the baby. Even eight months later as I could feel his strong movements within me I worried for his safety. After his birth I was finally able to breath a little. Still, as our mothers will jokingly tell you, Kirk and I both spent a good portion of Whit's first few weeks checking to make sure he was breathing.
One full year later we have become a family of three. We are getting the hang of things, settling into a routine and loving every minute of being parents.
It's been a long and bumpy road but as we look back on the path that we have traveled we can see that we were right all along. Things do happen for a reason and, as I type this, that reason is sleeping peacefully in my arms. Our journey brought us to Whit and the years, the tears, and the sacrifices have been more than worth it.