ninety-one.

I may not have been alive by a long shot, but one of my favorite days is + forever will be June 3rd, 1923. The lady you see below holding the baby was born on this day, and if she were still with us, she would have been celebrating her ninety-first birthday today. The baby you see her holding is me when I was only a few days old. I carry this picture around in my Bible to mark King Solomon's prayer of dedication of the temple in 1 Kings 8, because from the time I was born to the time she went to be with Jesus when I was seventeen, she did her best to help dedicate me to + raise me up in the Lord.

What a beautiful blessing it is to have known someone who you still praise + thank Jesus for every single day even eight years after she departed this earth to spend eternity with her Maker. Though I'd like to be the one singing her 'happy birthday' today, I can't imagine a more breath-taking voice than that of our Father in heaven. One day, I will be laying my crowns down at His feet alongside her, and I don't foresee there ever being a more magnificent dream I could ever have than that.

"And may these words of mine, which I have prayed before the Lord, be near to the Lord our God day and night, that he may uphold the cause of his servant and the cause of his people Israel according to each day's need, so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God and that there is no other."

-1 Kings 8:59-60