August 28th.

I'm a fan of blogs. I love reading about other people's lives. Real life is always more entertaining than fiction. The drama that I, Norah Efron, Steven Spielberg, or Joss Whedon can write is nothing compared to what fate, the fairies, or God Almighty (depending on your personal preference) can script.

I stumbled upon Who Says 8 Is Enough? a bit ago and have loved getting to know her story and read about her nine (yep, NINE. Take that Kate Gosselin) children. Not too far into her blog, she had a posting that revealed the story of her husband's affair. I immediately clicked on the label link and read the whole story, start to finish.

Debi writes with a bite that any woman scorned would appreciate. She never covers up her reality, whether she is writing a letter to the other woman or she is expressing her butterflies about beginning to "date" her husband again. One thing that captivated me while reading was that throughout the journey, she clinged to God's grace -- as efficiently as a woman lost can -- and truly wished to forgive her husband and save her marriage.

During one of her most recent blog posts she wrote this:

August 27th.
It’s the day that forever changed my life,
our life.
It’s a day I hate remembering,
a day I wish I could forget,
but a day that needed to happen so that
August 28th could happen.

August 27th I found out the marriage I was living,
the life I thought I loved
was gone.

August 28th was the day we both decided it was worth fighting for,
worth what we have gone through the past two years;
Often times,
pure hell…
Painful,
awful,
raw,
ripped-open-wound hell.

The profoundness of this statement "a day that needed to happen so that August 28th could happen" gripped me.

I immediately began to flash back to all of the "August 28ths" in my life. Some of them weren't the day after, some of them weren't even the year after, but the August 28ths still exist.

I laid in bed that night, sobbing into my pillow because I knew that a certain gentlemen and I were never going to date. We were too different; too many unkind words had been spoken between us. I had wasted months of my life waiting for him to make a move and it had become clear that it was simply never going to happen. I laid in bed, alone, lonely, sad, mascara coming together in clumps on my cheeks.

After coming home from Clearwater and becoming so life-changingly depressed, I remember a day that I had skipped class (again) and I was laying in my bed, praying for the world to go away. I remember curling up in my purple comforter and through very sleepy eyes, looking up to the front window of my dorm room and scowling at the sun. I remember a few hours later, after napping on and off, my roommate coming in from class and asking if I was going to eat that day. I tucked up my head into the cocoon of the comforter and didn't verbally respond.

The night that a seemingly perfect boy and I broke up, I laid down on our yellow couch in my still-very-new apartment and tried to block out the last words he spoke to me, "You're not worth it." I was completely defeated, completely heartbroken, and very angry. For someone who had told you about the world that he wanted to build for you, with you, around you...to then, in the heat of fight, tell you that you're "not worth it."

When Uncle Barry called to tell us that Hannah was being taken to the hospital for high blood pressure, and Mama explained to us that there was a chance that Hannah or baby Eden could be harmed, I curled up in my Daddy's recliner and turned the TV up louder to try to forget everything she just told me. I was channeling a mental utopia as hard as I could.

But then, August 28th happened.

Psalm 143:8 "Let the morning bring me news of Your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in You."

As I laid in bed with my mascara ruining my favorite pillow case, a received a text from a friend with the words "Psalm 143:8" in it. I grabbed my little pink Bible and flipped to the page. I started praying this verse over and over again. I fell into the Twilight Zone while repeating it in my heart. I wasn't counting sheep, I was praying for news of His unfailing love.
At 6:14 the next morning, the sun was shining so brightly into my dorm room that I was forced to wake up. My head was pounding due to the ceaseless tears the night before, and the mascara had taken over my face, but the sun was shining. The Lord's presence was in my room. I was completely surrounded by warmth and comfort. My roommate let out a groan in the bunk above me and a four-letter word slipped out about the sunshine, but I knew in that moment that I was loved and I wasn't forgotten.

I started going to class again, meeting with my girls, talking to Jesus in a not angry voice. I started to eat actual food (not ice cream) and I started to not curse the sunshine. I learned from Jesus and from my beloved Clearwater family how to love and how to truly live, and I stopped hating them for not being with me. I applied the lessons that I was given over the course of our summer together and became more of the person I was meant to be.

Eden arrived with a perfect strength and her laugh is the reason that I wake up most mornings. When she cuts that precious blue eyes and me and scolds, "Bekah!" or when she giggles and squeals, "MY Bekah Suzanne" I know that the Lord reigns supreme. When she screams at the top of her lungs just to see my reaction and then melts into a fit of joy, I am reminded that things don't come on time, they come on His time.

I have traveled to the Middle East. I have loved the unloved. I kissed the faces of orphans and I have stood where my Jesus stood. I have had coffee dates, popcorn dates, movie nights, noodle nights, sleepovers, and let's-go-swinging-in-the-park playdates with over 200 of the world's most beautiful girls. And I get to call them 'mine'. They wouldn't be mine, at least, not to the depth that they are now. I taught 161 of the best students on the planet. My life is better than the one we talked about building.

August 27ths are the days that people consider checking out. Those days bring only pain and hurt and tears.

August 28ths are the days where the sun is shining too brightly.

Loving the 28th is easy. Being thankful for the 27th is when true love is formed.