I’ve needed to write this for a long time. If not for you, then for me. I turn 29 in a few weeks and the upcoming date has been staring at me from my planner for months. Although I’ve decorated the calendar block with exclamation points and underlines, if I were being honest, it would be filled with as many question marks as one tiny box could fit. It means there is one more year before I start a new decade of my life. The pressure to live life to the fullest is haunting me with expectation and the fear of not living up to those expectations. Do you ever look at your life and want so much from it, that the very thought of pursuing it makes you want to crawl into bed?
The uncertainty of my 30s and the conclusion of my 20s feels like it’s closing in on me from both sides. I can’t help but reflect on the past 10 years of my life. If you had told me all that I would go through in the course of a decade, I would have ran in the other direction. No one told me I would be rejected from 100+ jobs after graduation. No one told me someone would run a stop sign and take my dad’s life before my senior year of college. No one told me I would have to decide between paying for health insurance and Friday nights out. No one told me I’d fail over and over again—in relationships, in job interviews, in difficult conversations, in accepting my faults…And it’s a good thing they didn’t because I would have ran away. That’s why whenever people tell me that I am a strong person, it always surprises me. I never knew there was ever another option. And had I known that I could have chosen something other than strength, I would have gladly ran to the other line that was dealing a different card.
And that’s why life doesn’t give us much of a glimpse into the future. We sell ourselves short when we take measurement of our own strength. I didn’t know what I would go through these past 10 years…I didn’t know what I could go through. I have failed more times than I could ever bear to bring to my own recollection. And in this last year before 30, I’ve decided to embrace each of these failures wholeheartedly and allow them to define me. I know that there are all kinds of comforting words out there that say you are not defined by your past or your mistakes, but I’ve decided to choose to be defined by my faults and shortcomings. Because it is where I have failed that I have flourished. Resilience. Courage. Faith. Adaptability. Compassion. A true sense of self. I discovered all of those characteristics within myself in my darkest moments when I had finally come to the end of myself. And when I came to terms with my failures, it allowed me to admit defeat and give God room to work in my life.
The past 10 years of my life have been difficult. They have tested my character, loyalties, beliefs and faith in ways that I can’t place into words. But they have also transformed my character, loyalties, beliefs and faith in ways that I can’t place into words. I had to write that to myself. To read on the days I’m feeling sorry for myself. To read when I’m not sure if I can walk through the fires that are sure to come. To read to a friend and remind them that transformation happens in the trial. And I’m writing it for you, too. To encourage you that you will find who you are in the seasons of life when it hurts so bad you are certain it’s un-survivable, in the seasons when uncertainty feels like darkness, and in the seasons when your faith feels like a distant memory you can no longer find.
Wherever you’re at in your life or whatever season you’re in — maybe it was unexpected or turned your world upside down —let it come. I have no idea what’s to come when the clock hits midnight on my 29th birthday or even on my 30th birthday, but I know it will be hard. And tremendous. And unsettling. And overwhelming. And beautiful. I know there will moments of life on top of the world and moments when life seems reduced to two hours crying on a bathroom floor, and I know there will be a lot of moments in between. And I’ll write them all into my story because they all have a place and a purpose. And whatever is on its way to me, I’m very sure of this: the best is yet to come.