My Timekeeper.

If there is one thing that regularly reminds me that life is flying by, it's my oldest daughter. For some reason, I feel like her life in particular is on warp speed. Kevan has noticed too. All too often I look her way and think, "When did THAT happen?" How did her hair get so long? When did she get so tall? How does she have so many ideas, and goals, and interests? How has she even been alive long enough to come up with this stuff?? There is just something about Bekah Jane that makes me want to hold on that much tighter, because I'm all-too-aware that childhood is fleeting and the days where I have her heart are small.

She turned 6 a couple weeks ago. SIX. I spent a good chunk of time looking back on her baby pictures, at her as a toddler, just trying to relive it...to remember, to somehow make sense of how we got from there to here.

She spent her birthday playing with her brothers and sister, and then later with Kate and Everett during a surprise slumber party at our house. And I spent yesterday just soaking her up, one on one, during an impromptu girls day out.

I loved sitting across from her at Starbucks, sharing a tiny little table she made by pushing the arms of our chairs together. She was chatty, telling me all about Martin Luther King, Jr., and the dream he had. "It doesn't matter if you have, like, brown eyes or maybe blue eyes. It doesn't matter at all. Everyone should just be kind to everyone. In the whole world."

And later she got to live it out, this ideal that she apparently shares with King. Leaving Target, a young couple sitting outside asked for some money. We took them out to lunch. We talked. Bekah Jane was quiet, saying hello, then staying close to me. But when we left that restaurant - and I mean as soon as they were out of earshot - she unloaded all that was swimming around in that head of hers. "MOM! We need to sell some stuff! They are sleeping in the BUSHES! That is not COMFORTABLE for humans!" (I love it when she refers to people as "humans".) "I have some toys. And clothes. And dad has a lot of clothes. We can sell that stuff and buy them a bed. I'm going to buy them a house. It is COLD at night!" She ranted and raved for a while. All this from the girl who barely said 2 words during lunch; I'd wondered if she was even aware of our company. Was she ever. We did find that couple again, a bit later, and Bekah Jane was able to give them a gift card as a present, and we talked with them a bit more. I loved hearing my girl's heart that afternoon. Her love for people, her desire to care for others.

(She also told me a few weeks back that she was going to marry Everett, and live on a farm, and grow food for all the poor people.)

This girl, with the long blond hair, and straight little rows of pearly white teeth, and the gleaming blue eyes, she is a bit of a mystery to me. She loves clothes, and fashion, and making outfits. She has an eye for color, and even wanted to decorate her room special for Christmas. She loves teaching (tonight it was a ballet class to her little brothers), and dancing, and prancing (always on her tip toes, that one). She loves to sing for us, to perform gymnastics or dance moves. She loves to cook, and bake, and she's good at it. She loves her baby dolls, and often asks me to help care for her "children." One day she actually said to me, "My kids are driving me CRAZY!" And sometimes she walks around a bit frazzled, pushing a baby in her stroller, carrying a few more, telling me, "I have A LOT of children! This is hard work!" Nevertheless. she really, really wants to be a mommy one day.

But she is also happiest playing by herself. Completely lost in her own world. With ponies, with her dolls, with her bunny. Sometimes she invites me to play. And sometimes I invite myself, only to get turned down. "Mom, I am PLAYING. You are distracting me!" "But you're so cute," I respond, "I want to play with you!" "Ok," she concedes, "You can listen at the door."

These are the moments when I remember that time is flying by.

This is why I invite her to come along when I have a day to myself. Because I don't want to miss these windows to really KNOW her. To see her heart in motion, to listen with attention undivided. This is why time stands still at bedtime, when I have her all to myself as she rambles about her day, and I sit bedside captivated, in awe that she is my girl and I get to be her mama.

Happy birthday, my beautiful daughter. You know that man looks at the outside, but God looks at the heart. May you continue to grow more lovely from the inside out as your heart reflects Jesus and you live to honor him.

Love is not a big enough word, but it will have to do.

Mama.