The End of Decade

There are 57 minutes left of my twenties.

Turning another year older doesn’t usually bother me, but this year is different. It’s quite strange to be leaving a decade behind and begin a new one. I don’t really know how to explain how I’m feeling.

I have been reflecting on my twenties and there are so many great memories:

the college days at TWU

mission trips to Kenya & India

Bible school in Australia

internship in New York City

sailing in Greece

sister’s wedding, brother’s wedding, the birth of my nephew

new friendships

bad haircuts (maybe not a great memory, but a memory nonetheless)

jobs

grad school

hard times, good times, and everything in between

My twenties have been good. Many things about me have changed, whether it be my looks, my perspectives, or my heart. I have made mistakes and learned from them. I have experienced great joy and so much laughter. The last decade has not been perfect, but I wouldn’t change it because it has made me who I am now.

The thought of being 30 scares me a little, but the one thing that helps me embrace it, is knowing that God is continuing to work in me and He is changing me to be more like Him. I am excited to see where He will take me in the next decade and in the year ahead.

So to my twenties I say, farewell. And to my thirties I say, the best is yet to come!

Contradiction

I feel like I’m in the middle of a contradiction. I feel tension in every area of my life. My life is full and busy and my mind is constantly working, yet I feel like I don’t have time to process all that is going on in my head and in my heart.

I am learning so much as I read and write and dialogue about the problems that exist in our world today. I feel the weight of responsibility, but don’t really know how I should respond.

I want to love God and love people, but have yet to grasp or recognize what God’s calling is for me.

Some moments I feel hopeless and other times I feel inspired.

I feel like my weaknesses are slapping me in the face and I am reminded how desperately I need God.

I am overcome with doubt, when all I really want to do is hope.

I have more questions than answers.

Everything that has become normal is feeling foreign.

The process is overwhelming, but is  proving to be rewarding.

I am trying to resolve my contradiction, but as Parker J. Palmer (1980) stated:

Our first need is not to release the tension, but to live the contradictions, fully and painfully aware of the poles between which our lives are stretched. As we do so, we will be plunged into paradox, at the center of which we will find transcendence and new life. Our lives will be changed. Both our beliefs and our actions will become more responsive to God’s spirit. But this will happen only as we allow ourselves to be engulfed by contradictions which God alone can resolve. With Jonah, we will be delivered. But first we will be swallowed into darkness.

Right now I’m being swallowed into darkness, but I know its not the end. As I live the contradiction, I am gaining a better understanding of what it really means to be a follower of Jesus.

Revelation

I found an email I wrote on January 23, 2005. I think I sent it to some of my friends. I didn’t realize I had it and I vaguely remember writing it. It was a good reminder to me today and I hope it can encourage you.

God is amazing! I just wanted to share something with you. Something so simple, yet it took me quite awhile to figure it out. I have been on this search to figure out what I want to do with my life. And lately I have been looking for a job, a task that I have neither enjoyed nor found very rewarding. Thru this process I have been frustrated, angry, unhappy, and simply… miserable. I have prayed for God to show me just what the purpose of my life is and to be honest, lately, I have felt my life was never going to have purpose. Yet, I know that is not true because God created me for a reason and with a purpose.

As I was praying today and telling God that I wanted my life to have a purpose and be meaningful, it all of a sudden dawned on me… the things in my life that have been meaningful and have contributed to making me into a woman of God have been the times that I have been learning more about God, building relationships with others who have encouraged me and I have also been able to encourage, and the times I have been serving Him in many different ways. And that’s what I want my life to be about. The things that impact the core of who I am.

I always thought, I don’t want to be a missionary, but in reality, as Christians, we are all called to be missionaries. It looks different for each one of us – whether we are a pilot, a Bible smuggler, a lawyer, a fireman, a stay at home mom, a nurse, etc., we are all missionaries! We are all called to invest in things that are eternal.

So my encouragement to you is this – don’t just work a 9-5 job because that is the norm, invest in something that is meaningful and invest in something that contributes to the eternal because ultimately, that’s all the matters! And for some, that may be working a 9-5 job and for other that may mean smuggling Bibles in China.

I don’t all of a sudden have my life all figured out. I still don’t know for sure what I will be doing next, but it is now clear to me that my life has purpose and it took me realizing something simple to finally see that. But the only way I was able to realize that was by seeking the God who created me with purpose.

May God be with each one of you and may you find God’s purpose for your life as you seek Him.