I turn 25 next week.
It didn’t really hit me until I read a chapter in Bittersweet called “25”.
I read, reread, and reread that chapter while sitting alone at the resort diner.
Tears filled my eyes but I didn’t let them fall, mainly because I’ve been crying all day and the last thing that I wanted was to cause a scene… I already got enough concerned looks sitting alone with puffy eyes at a table for two.
She talked about the things she was told and the hard lessons she learned when she turned 25.
I felt like it was destiny that I was supposed to read this chapter the moment that I did.
At the end of the chapter she wrote,
“Become, believe, try.”
With tears in my eyes, I reflected over the past year of being 24.
I came home from the world race, was in a new relationship and then there was the expected break up and the expected heart break.
I moved two weeks later to Gainesville, Georgia for a discipleship program and there was a new challenge, change, and identity crisis.
I spent that season kayaking, after kayaking, after kayaking to meet with the Lord on several different occasions; the happy ones, sad ones, and uncertain ones.
There was the unexpected job offer that came with a new and different challenge of it’s own. Then the unexpected relationship and the unexpected break up. All the while, I had friends move and change quicker and more often than I anticipated.
So much transition and change has happened for my little heart to understand.
As I closed my book, I asked myself what I would change,
“Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path” She said.
And after reading that I’m not sure I would trade any of it, not even today;
I spent a lot of today questioning His voice, yelling, crying, threatening, then on my knees repenting.
Even though it’s been hard, and it’s sucked, and it’s felt like a never ending day.
Even though I’ve wrestled, paced in circles sobbing, praying, and reciting scripture over my life and the lives around me.
Even though I’ve slept, taken a short walk, complained, cried over injustice, cried over my friends and family, threatened to walk away, and scolded the Lord for not giving me the answers that I wanted.
I wouldn’t trade it, because I was honest and it took intensity and courage.
Today is a day of growth,
and as I sit here and write this blog,
I know the truth and the truth is I don’t need to have all the answers.
I’m grateful for today, because today I was given the grace to be human and in my humanity He spoke.
This is a small glimpse of my 24th year;
I became, I believed, and I tried.
As I dream about what my 25th year has the potential to look like, I’m pleased because I will be a stronger woman than I was the year prior, a stronger woman than I am today.
I will continue to grow and plead and wrestle and fight,
but I’m learning that’s okay, because this somehow puts me in a position to trust my heavenly Papa more than anyone or anything else on this planet.
He always comes through for me, always.
This year I’ve been without lack every single time.
I’m hopeful for 25, and it’s not because my car insurance goes down and I’m finally able to get a car rental without extra fees,
but because He’s good all the time.
And if I can get through this year with all the challenge, change, questioning and growth that came with it, I’m convinced I can get through the next, then the next, and then the next.
Here’s to another year of devoting my life to You, Papa.
You make life worth it, thanks for loving all of me.
