Grace

Here is this girl, my first girl, my first baby, at a swim meet.

She is has made some kind of astonishing leaps in maturity this past summer.  I don't know exactly how or when but she suddenly switched from a little girl to nearly...a young woman!  Still over 3 months away from her 12th birthday, and sometimes still very much my  little girl.  But most times she is something entirely different.

I guess she described it best when she bore her testimony on Sunday.  She walked confidently up to the stand and sat calmly waiting for her turn at the pulpit.  She then boldly testified, like I've never heard her before, that she knew that she was a daughter of God and that He loved her.  I was almost shocked and then overjoyed by the power with which she shared her very own testimony.  It was hardly a fledgling at all, but a full grown, soaring testimony of her divinity, the truthfulness of the gospel, and what her relationship with her Heavenly Father means to her.  Of course she hasn't even hit her teen years and I know there is testing and hard times waiting for this beautiful girl of mine.  But what a joy it is to become acquainted (reacquainted?) with the woman inside this sweet little girl.