Nineteen Years and Counting…

September 24, 2026

Nineteen Years and Counting…

Today, my template for blogs opened to “Sand In A Glass.” This blog was written in August of 2020. In a few weeks during that year I was helping out with art in our summer camp, trying desperately to learn how to be more artistic (very funny, didn’t stick). Kimberly made sand art.

My takeaway from that day and art project (with my too-analytical writer’s brain) was to always enjoy life before it slips away.

I smiled because my phone also did an update and the messenger app thought I was new. It sent me a “new notification” today, as I’m writing, from Feb 19, 2019 (the afternoon before Thea was born): I’d sent a video to my boss showing the cuteness of her son playing with a daycare room kiddo and she’d liked it. Literally, fifteen hours and fifty-six minutes before Thea’s birth, I was sending a video from the daycare room through the wall to my boss to show the cuteness of her now-adult son playing with the crawling baby who is now eight! (Pic below!)

Time (sand) in a glass.

Her adorable middle-schooler is making the baby giggle-shriek while my Tuesday afternoon gymnast and her studious genius are working on school.

Blink.

Thea is born the next day. (We’re actually back at gym less than 24 hours later for the other girls’ gym classes on Thea’s birth day – funny story)

Blink.

Middle schooler is an adult. Crawling baby is eight. Tuesday gymnast is working on her Master’s degree. Studious genius is an adult towering over most people I know.

And today is Kimberly’s nineteenth birthday. My third child is nineteen. My short little squishy baby born with a headful of thick black hair is now a college-graduated adult with long blond hair in the can-be-confusing “limbo” of “God, what is my next step?” between full-time child being directed and full-time adult on a mission. My current newest “baby” (3-year-old) is snuggled against me as I type now.

Tine (sand) in a glass.

As the Bible tells us: life is a vapor, here one day and gone the next.

We need to savor every moment. Enjoy the baby snuggles. Giggle with the silliness. Pray without ceasing. Be there for every stage.

The 24-year-old me snuggling my black-haired chunky monkey with chin rolls my midwife counted (she still holds the record of my heaviest newborn, Laud matched her length, but was three pounds lighter) – that version of me has also gone. I’ve grown. I’ve changed. That was the biggest eye-opener for me as a young mom. I remember realizing when I was pregnant with Kimberly, that as I was growing, improving, and constantly trying to allow Jesus to change my heart and bring me closer to Him, my parents also were growing even then. My father was continually changing – it was very evident in his life because he was so studious that every time God brought something new for Daddy to learn or improve on, suddenly Daddy became the expert on whatever that was and talked about it non-stop. I loved this. It helped me grow.

The 24 year old woman snuggling my baby Kimberly is not who I am today. Life changes everyone – time always changes people. I pray that I am allowing these changes to improve who I am.

That 24-year-old had never run a business, worked for a Christian boss, watched my niece’s birth, mothered a preteen, teen, or adult, witnessed my child’s salvation, purposefully made a friend and kept that friendship watered through time, coached gymnastics, mothered a competitive gymnast, spoke to someone without first being dragged into the conversation by someone else, introduced myself to someone without it being a work environment, been to my sister’s funeral, had a Thanksgiving Dinner without my Daddy, went on a family vacation with my husband and children, been to SeaWorld, screamed “WHY” to God after an accident, prayed for my brother’s heart after betrayal, got to ride the same roller coaster that was my first with one of my babies as their first roller coaster, took my children to Washington DC, watched a child graduate, had to tell my children their Boompa went to heaven, dropped my babies off at a church nursery, hired a babysitter, watched my husband get excited and buy my baby sister her first guitar, cried and comforted my sister through tough nights, testified against someone in court, bought land, or cried with joy as my eldest spoke her wedding vows. (No, I didn’t list those in chronological order, I listed them as they came in my head.)

Ups, downs, new skills, new experiences, depths of sorrow, heights of joy, sometimes the roller coaster of emotion happened in the same day. These are bits that added to the woman I was nineteen years ago. I’ve allowed Jesus to enter places in my heart that I didn’t know even existed when I was 24. I had never felt anger and sadness like I did when my sister was killed. I never knew exhaustion like falling asleep on the couch dispatching trying to stay awake by playing SIMS on playstation with my eldest girls. I didn’t know how excited I could get for my girls as they accomplished goals they worked so hard for. I didn’t know the sheer joy I could feel when my child decided to let Jesus save their soul.

I learned how to forgive. I learned how to rest. I learned how to love. I learned how to trust.

Those things I thought I knew at 24.

I trusted Jesus with everything – so each time I wanted control, I had to lay things down and give them back instead of try to control. Emotions. People. Events. I knew my children belonged to Jesus, but watching my daughter drive 8 hours with three of my younger girls for a cousin week totally tested my decision not to worry. Every time I thought of them and felt my mind try to start the worry train, I just derailed it with a prayer for protection and safety, reminding my mind that I trusted Jesus for them with my heart.

I’ve said so many times: if I trust Jesus with my eternal salvation, how can I not trust Him for everything else in life?

My children might have heard me say that too much, but I speak it to my own mind more than I say the words out loud.

These are the things nineteen years have taught me. I pray that I keep allowing Jesus to work on my heart to continually renew my mind and keep me learning and growing more like Him. I want my children to see Jesus’ love when they see me. So I can say that the good they see inside of me is actually Jesus shining through.

Our family has grown.

Louis, Christina, Rebeccah, and I welcomed our little Kimberly Jeanette into the world nineteen years ago at lunchtime (she came the day before Grandma, Aunt Dorothy, and Aunt Mary had to catch the train back to Georgia). Being part of the Tart Family means loving and serving each other. Being there for each other in everything. Praying for each other in all things. We grow, love, and share. I am so thankful for nineteen years with Kimberly. I am so thankful for 24 years of our Tart Family. I pray God guides Louis and I to keep leading, loving, and serving our children so our legacy is the love we all share that really is Jesus shining from inside each of us.

Okay, end of my deep thoughts for today. Enjoy some fun stuff!

…AND… because this is a birthday post, here are some BIRTH day pictures haha! Notice how Christina’s hair is blonde and has ringlets and Kimbelry’s hair is thick and black. How did Kimberly switch the hair up without bleaching? (No, she hasn’t colored her hair & today, no one who meets Kimberly as her adult self believes she had jet black hair at birth… Yes, I do have proof lol)