I’ve made it to another birthday, and this year, I find myself imagining my life as a book. The years are represented by chapters and the pages represent all of the days that I have lived. As I reflect on these “pages” of my life story thus far, the ones that seem to stand out the most in my mind are those which held defining moments—moments that made a clear distinction between “life before this” and “life after this.” Their corresponding dates are etched into my memory just like the events themselves. Some of them were amazing, others were painful, but all of those defining moments meant that life as I knew it was going to change—whether that would be for better or worse.
Nonetheless, as I look back on my life, and the past year in particular, I know that so many changes did not seem to happen on the pages that held such defining moments. Instead, they occurred over such a gradual process that no single turn of a page would signify that change had even taken place. Still, I am in awe of how different things are now compared to how they were just one short year ago! “What day should I have celebrated?” is a question that came to mind; however, I have come to realize that change happens every day. It happens when we come across a social media post that shifts our perspective toward self-compassion, when we hear something in a sermon or lecture that more fully develops a belief that we hold, when we choose to reflect before we react, when we make the decision to dismiss an invalidating thought and focus on a self-validating one instead…the list goes on and on.
Those changes that seem small or insignificant may be the very ones that serve as the catalyst to launch us onto the path of incredible growth. There is beauty in the fact that each page of our lives begins as a blank canvas—free of mistakes and also with the freedom to record memories, lived experiences, emotions, and the choices we make both within ourselves and for our lives. Even the littlest of choices scattered throughout a chapter of life (e.g., putting in one's best effort in college coursework each day) can contribute to the successful completion of significant goals (e.g., earning a degree)!
Psalm 139:16 says, “Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” Though we cannot know what’s going to happen in the next pages of our stories, God already knows every detail, and He promises to walk through it all with us. He sees the way that we slowly but surely evolve, even when we ourselves have not yet noticed the change. He sees the growth that is whispered from the lowest valleys just as much as the growth that echoes and resounds from the mountaintops. If 22-year-old me were to look in the mirror and see 23-year-old me looking back at her, I am certain her future reflection would be unrecognizable, yet God saw her growing and becoming along every page of this past chapter. May we all find comfort in knowing that regardless of whether anyone else can see it, He notices even our tiniest changes as we grow through the pages of our lives. :)