In about twenty minutes I'll turn 30 years old. 30. I'm not someone who has ever been weird about birthdays -- either over-the-top celebrating or pretending they don't exist. I don't fear getting older -- I work in a job where I see every day that another year of life is a precious gift. But I do feel like 30 is significant because somehow in my mind in means that I should be a full-on grown-up now. Never mind the fact that I've been working in my career for almost a decade now and am a wife and a mama with all the joys and responsibilities of those roles ... turning 30 means I should have some answers by now. But somewhere between 20 and 30 I realized that being a grown-up most certainly doesn't mean having answers to ANY of my
real questions. In fact, my list of hard questions grows longer by the day.- Growing in maturity means accepting the tensions that exists in our beautifully made but horribly broken world. There is such wonder in this life and such pain that coexist and I've learned a lot in this last decade about how to hold onto and learn from both. Mostly today I feel overwhelmingly thankful for the people that I get to share my life with. Tonight my sister and Scott planned a little surprise party and as I looked around the room I felt overwhelmed by God's graciousness to place such wonderful people in my life. Dear dear friends who have seen me at my lowest and loved me there. Friends that are laughing and crying with me through motherhood. My husband, who has taught me more than I could have ever imagined about what
love looks like in action. My parents, who have shown by their lives what it looks like to love well. My sister, who if anyone had told me ten years ago that she'd be my dearest friend, we both would have laughed! And yet here we are, doing the messy and amazing work of motherhood together side-by-side. My children, who are gifts in my life and who are shaping me and molding me in ways that NO two other people ever could have. And when I look around I know this: when I turn 40 I still won't have answers to most of my questions but if I'm blessed enough to be surrounded by such amazing people and walking life together, I'll be okay. I'll be thankful. Relationships are the hard stuff of life -- the communicating, the being willing to change, the listening more than we talk, the humility, the trust, the stuff that sometimes makes me want to go back to bed as soon as the day has started. But relationships are what makes life
worth living. So bring on a new decade! Another ten years of learning what it means to trust in the Lord, to do life together, to love well, to live fully and serve one another.
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| Overwhelmingly thankful to get to share my life with these three |
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| My sister, a gift to me on some many levels (and Addy, I'll pay for your chiropractor bills! Sorry!) |
