Here’s to 22!
I wonder if I’ll be 32, 42, 52, and reading back to this moment.
I think that birthdays are a time full of hope and dreams. I want to be someone who strives to enjoy each year as it comes, and I’m excited to look back on my life and everything/everyone that affected me - the friends I made, the achievements I’ve marked, the faith that I sowed into - be so vibrant and present even in the future.
2021 (not even half way yet but ⅓):
I am graduating from college
I am entering grad school
I am still serving as a small group leader
I have completed an 8 week course for Emotionally Healthy Spirituality
I attended a national higher calling conference
I made new friends from the West Coast/other areas of the East Coast
I started a winter break devo group with the help of so many great people
I’ve been working at my job as a physics content creator and finished a huge project
I got the Pfizer vaccine/survived a pandemic so far
I’m embracing the grief and lamenting that comes with dealing with racism
God is still with me.
I have a lot of hopes and dreams for my life. I want to finish college strong. I want to go into grad school with flexibility, grace, and godly expectations. I hope that one day I’ll go to missions and serve faithfully. I want to dream bigger than ever, so, one day, I hope to pray over the blind to receive full restoration of their healing. I want faith that moves mountains and brings new life. I want the faith to see God working through me for His glory. See the goodness of God. I want to live that out for myself and others.
I hope that my career path would not be about self-glory. I want to continue to yield the next four years and beyond to God’s loving hands, and I’m excited to see how God will move with me on this new journey. I honestly feel a lot of fear about the unknown, but God has never left my side before and He’s not going to start now. I think I’ll be challenged to prioritize my faith, but without Jesus, I can’t go through this new path with the best of me. I hope to serve a lot of communities in need, and that God would give me vision (haha - get it) to what areas I can enter into and be light where there’s darkness.
In the next few years, I hope to continue to share the good news of the gospel with others. I have found my purpose, and the next part is walking in that truth with power and authority. I remembered when I shared about Jesus with someone, I felt something inside of me say, “This is what you were put here for.” I was amazed! I had never experienced that calling so innately. I do a lot of things that I love: painting, writing, reading, working out, playing with my dog, talking with my friends, hanging out with my family, serving my community, and pursuing a career. None of that gave me the spirit of completeness that I experienced before, and that spirit will carry me through so many experiences.
I also dream about finding someone who shares the same common goal and heart of loving God with me. I feel a bit silly sometimes for wanting that because Jesus is enough, but Jesus is enough and I was created to desire a life and relationship uniquely to me for the glory of God. I’ve worked through a lot of things with God: fear of rejection, insecurities about my worth, and the disappointments I’ve faced in the past. Before I allow anyone to take that role in my life, I want God to be my first and foremost love. I want God to be the person I talk to when I wake up, first in my mind, and the source of my fulfillment so that the man that I choose to be with would further that purpose and cause. I hope that I would also be a blessing to my future husband, and that our relationship would be held together by Christ through every season. I also hope that for my friends that are looking for their match that God would give all of us the patience, wisdom, and love to make a choice that ripples into eternity through the goodness it would bring from their union (ew sappy).
I also dream about having children who are world changers one day! My great-grandmother’s faith, 3 generations ago, has blessed me immensely. I don’t know (and I never want to imagine) what life without Jesus would be like, so while I never knew her, I wouldn’t be here without her. I am amazed by the ways that one person’s faith can save the lives of so many, and I hope to be someone who continues the line of believers in my family. I’m honestly afraid of messing up the most in this category, I don’t know the fear and anxiety that parenthood brings. I also don’t know how God has managed since the beginning of time, but I know my loving parents and I know my loving Father. God willing, I pray that the future children that I will have will be strong warriors and gentle lovers in Christ.
God, I’m thankful that you’re willing to wait for me to grow through each year. I’m thankful that I woke up to celebrate my life, and one day there will be a party with you! I’m curious. Do you wear party hats? Do you dance too? Do you think it’s cute that we make a paper mache horse and whack it until the candy comes out? I look forward to that eternity when it comes and maybe I’ll get my answers, but until then I’m exactly where I need to be and 22 years old. I love you, God, stay with me as I turn another year older, today, and tomorrow and forever.
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