this growing up

My littlest sister turned 12 this week.

We were there for the weekend, me and Sam and my other sister Hannah and the family - riding our horses and drinking up the sun and wind and mountain views together. And of course we took pictures, because I just can't not.

I get a little teary looking at them - especially that last one, me and Hannah "twinning" in our matching dresses after church on Sunday. This is my friend and my comrade for all but the first 2.75 years of my life, the girl I share nearly every memory of my childhood with, the one who would play "school" with me (joining my stuffed animals as one of the students), the one who would help me collect fuzzy caterpillars and make "potions" and chop random plants with knives made of kindling wood like fancy chefs. We stained our knees by galloping across the yard on all fours, pretending to be dogs or horses or lions or anything else with four legs.

This growing up is odd. We are taller and more independent and further apart, but somehow I still feel six years old inside, still look at the world through the eyes of a child born old. I still want to call my mom about everything and would far rather be playing make-believe in the dirt or riding my horse off into an imaginary Narnian sunset with my sisters than join this strange achievement-obsessed, money-accumulating, it's-not-real-if-it's-not-on-Facebook grownup culture that seems to have lost sight of the things that matter.

But then, there is reward in being courageous and in becoming who God has asked us to become, in walking alone when we must so that we can keep our eyes on the King.

And we never really walk alone, after all. We walk with He who blesses the little children - the One whose love will never let us go - the God who sees even the sparrow, who cares about even the tiny moments of our lives, who has put eternity in our hearts so that there is a part of us that will always feel ageless, beyond time.

There is joy in making the trek of this life with Him.