Last Sunday, May 15th, marked the one-year anniversary of the day The Husband (then fiance) and I watched the skyline of Manhattan slip away from the window of our plane as we flew south to Atlanta. A lot has happened in a year.

I’ve become a wife, an aunt, an independent contractor (ooh! fancy! or just another word for being paid less?), an Anglophile and whatever the opposite of a Francophile is (two weeks in England and France justify this), and a homeowner. Oh, and a blogger endorsed by one of my favorite authors (HAVE I MENTIONED THAT LATELY?), whom The Husband and I had the pleasure of re-meeting, a year after our initial encounter (when I told her he was my Ethan and she signed my wedding shoes and HAVE I MENTIONED THAT LATELY?). I dragged him to a screening of Something Borrowed (my third, his first) and wouldn’t you know, despite all his good-natured complaining, that his laughter was the loudest? Love that guy. And love that he stuck around with me afterward and posed for a rather girly picture. (And love, since we’re on a roll, that EG now feels like an old friend. Rather than a stalking victim. Score.)

One of the songs played at our wedding in August was the hymn “Come Thou Fount,” which we chose after we heard Sufjan Stevens’ version on the Friday Night Lights soundtrack. A month before the big day, we walked into the Alpharetta Community Center and a worship service that was being kicked off with our song, and we looked at each other and knew we were right where we were supposed to be, church-wise. And life-wise. And I have to admit that on that day, as on the day we said our vows, I let the words here I raise my Ebenezer roll on by without knowing their meaning. Until yesterday, when an article from Relevant popped up in my Facebook newsfeed and left me enlightened. And inspired.

I think about all the changes that define this past year–those mentioned above, along with the day-to-day transformation from a New York existence to a suburban one: deciding whether to hire yard help and have children, planning our Target list according to the week’s non-delivery menu, adjusting to vehicular rather than human traffic. And I find myself, in an echo of the Israelites two thousand years ago, humbled by the countless deliverances that have occurred to get me here. Deliverances from wrong relationships, moments of weakness, bad choices. My constant betrayals of grace that were met not with similar faithlessness but with unwavering devotion. And I want to mark these triumphs of love over imperfection that occur in spite of me more often than with my cooperation. I want to honor these “streams of mercy never ceasing.”

And so I thank.

And I write.

And I try to remember to live this life I’ve been given rather than let it roll on past me without uncovering its ubiquitous enlightenment and inspiration.

And in the thanking and writing and living, I feel my soul begin to cooperate with what it was made for, with who designed it. And so the stones are raised.