The Last Day of a Sixteen Year Old Girl

   I was born on the Summer Solstice. That's right, December 21, the Summer Solstice. Let me explain. No, I was not born in Australia, but I was born in Africa.
   On the way to the hospital, Dad got lost. That's when he convinced Mamma that, "I really think we should call her Emma Lois, not Emma Josephine. Your grandma Lois never got along with Josephine. She'll be mad." At this point, Mom didn't care what I was named, so that's what they went with.
   At 8:-- am I was born in the Windhoek Medi-Clinic, Namibia, Africa. I guess I was aptly named because Mamma says I looked like Granny Lois. Dad had to get a certificate of birth from the Namibian consulate and then run down to the embassy (the marines waved him through the gates) and get my passport.
   According to my parents, they had to keep going back to the hospital because I was too yellow. I always knew there was a reason it was my favorite color. I also had a giant stork bite on my face. Whenever I get extremely upset or cry, it still shows.
   Some of the nurses were Afrikaans ladies, and we have a home video of one tucking me in and saying, "Oooh Emzakey!"
   According to my parents, it was a special time, because they had no family there to give advice and Christmas was coming and, "You never made a peep unless you were hungry, and we were all by ourselves with a new baby and we didn't know what to do with this perfect precious bundle." There was no car seat, not a lot of clothes, and a civil war was coming very close to them (the Namibian government let Angolans come over the border and use Namibian roads to fight against the Unita-go look up the Angolan civil war).
   Three weeks after I was born, January 7, they flew to Holland and visited my Dad's Uncle John for a week. That's when they realized that it wasn't summer anymore. Aunt Gerbregt put a hot water canister in a sock to warm the bed and bought Mom a bunch of waffle, flannel clothes for me. Mamma says that she must have thought I was going to die because the only clothes I had were "Namibian threads".
   When they finally made it home (somewhere around January 13th), they were greeted by all of my mom's family and my dad's parents. A month later, their luggage arrived along with my hope chest carved from Acacia wood.
   Since then we've had a tradition of standing me before the ancient seeder in the corner of the yard and taking a picture on my birthday.

1st Birthday

   On this last day of being sixteen, I hate thinking about getting older. I don't want to grow up. I wish I could go back to being eight but with the same friends and thoughts.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BOQFWnUg7vexFAHzkk8rcJBaYQA8gRfnvtYMuE0/?taken-by=wini.the.otter&hl=en 

   I don't think age really matters. It seems like a big deal when you're young, and you try to downplay it when you're old. But overall, it's just a number. You grow older each day. It doesn't mean you have some new revelation or epiphany, but you learn and are sanctified.
   I'm thankful for the friendships that have grown this year, and the things I've learned in class, and for my parents. I know tomorrow I won't feel any different. And maybe not the next day either. It's just another year, a number. Even though I hate the thought of growing up, I still will. A birthday and a number doesn't grow you. It's your maturity level. It's Christ working his all-sufficient grace in your life, sanctifying and purifying.
    I don't like "growing up" so I guess I can take comfort in the knowledge that I'm still in need of a lot more sanctification. x)
   Here's to the last day of sixteen.

~wini

"As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath. But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."
Ephesians 2:1-10