Important.

And if you had asked me when I was small what I would be like when I was big, I think I would have talked about the length of my hair and the style of my clothes and maybe how far I would be able to run. I would have pictured myself as a very important person with very important things to do and very important things to say. I'm sure in some childish journal from the Fifth Grade I described my adult life in great detail. I may have even drawn a picture.

And now that I'm there, I have to say I think I would have surprised that small me. Sometimes I surprise the big me.

I get really excited about notes written in crayon. And new shampoo. I give moving speeches about fractions and paragraphs and Rome. Sometimes I stand on desks and make funny voices when I read and let little girls play with my hair.

I have walked away. And I have crawled back. The stories of the Prodigal Son and the woman who washed Jesus' feet and Peter's betrayals have deep, deep meaning. I've cried out with Job and David. And I've prayed with Paul. I've been in the desert with Him. He's called me to stop and to sit and listen. To tend His sheep. To love the poor and the young and the hurting. He picks me up when I fall, He carries me when I'm tired, He gives me feet in high places and wings like eagles.

I am so deeply thankful that dark is light with Him.

My plans and dreams were so.. normal. And when He calls us, He calls us to be anything but that.

I think it's when I realize that He can do anything with me, that I start to get giddy. And then when I think about the word anything, I really get lightheaded. There's something exciting about the God who moved waters and the hardest hearts moving in my life. When people ask me why I am where I am and why I do what I do, I don't have a perfect answer. But I know He does.

Because all of those seemingly little things that we do every day are extraordinary. He lifts the darkness and brightens the world through them. And when we notice Him, when we remember that He is in us, then what we are and what He does through us lingers into forever. And that is very, very important.