24 little hours.

"One day can make your life. One day can ruin your life. All life is is four or five days that change everything."
~ Beverly Donofrio, Riding In Cars With Boys

I've been thinking along those lines all day. I totally believe it, too, that life merely consists of several days that changes your life, and the intervals are just down-time until the next life-altering day. There are days that changed my life - days I'll never forget...

• The day I had my first slow dance. It was summer. I was at camp. We were 11. And I was becoming a young woman with each slow, steady sway.
  
• The night of my first kiss. I was 14. It was on the front step. I ran into the house and checked my lips in the mirror to see if they were still there. With lips burning, I wrote it all down in my diary.
• The night the same boy broke up with me. I weeped for two hours on the phone to my new friend, Christopher, thus sealing a friendship that remains to this day.
• The night I found out that all 6 of the young women I'd shared the gospel with in Panama City Beach on a mission trip...died in a car crash just days later.
  
• The last day of a summer long mission trip in New Jersey. 63 people. Hundreds of friendships formed. Countless tears as we gripped each other. The sight of my best friend weeping into her small hands, asking me between sobs why it was so hard to leave.
• The night my mother found out I'd lost my virginity. Between sobs, she wailed "How could you do this to ME?!" and told me I would have to grovel for forgiveness. Our relationship died that night, and so did a piece of me.
  
• The first time Jason told me he loved me. We'd kissed just a week before and everything was going so fast. I wanted to tell him...but I couldn't...so he turned me to him and reassured me that he was probably thinking the same thing. So I said, "I think I could love you for a long time." And without skipping a beat, he replied, "I love you too." And that's how I found out Jason loved me.
• The day my mother and I forgave each other unexpectedly while doing taxes. She told me she was proud of me. And I left, holding back tears.
• This past Sunday afternoon, laying face-to-face with Jason in bed. I was testing the dialation of his pupils according to the distance between our faces, and without warning he smiled the smile that only I know...the quiet, soft smile that every so often reveals his heart, despite himself...and tears began to run down his cheeks. He pulled me closer, closed his eyes, and said, "I'm a lucky guy." I think I renewed my love for him that day.

Those are the days that come the quickest to memory. So what about you, dear friend? What day, for better or for worse, changed your life?