Dear God,
Thank You for another day where we celebrate Your creation, and I’m one of them! 25 years ago, I was born into the world, and even before I entered, You were already with me. I don’t have a lot of memories as a child but I know You were so watching me and guiding each step until I was led here. Sometimes I wonder if I was meant to be here — did it have to be me? — and I think about how intentional You are and I decide that yes, I am meant to be here.
Thank You for caring so well for my life for the past quarter of the century, and for the rest of my life after!
Love,
Grace
I heard 25 is when your frontal lobe is supposed to fully develop. I don’t know if someone can temperature check mine, but I do feel a little more “cooked” than normal. The concerns I have about life are not the same ones that high school or college Grace found herself sleepless over.
Now I’m thinking about my life post-graduation. Where do I want to work? Where will I live? Will I continue going to my church? How do I want to find a life partner? I don’t quite feel like a “woman” but I’m definitely no “girl”. I feel like the tween version of an adult?
Let me ask this: when you’re 30 does it all come together? Do you suddenly feel at ease with the life you’ve built? I feel like I’m figuring out my life now, but somehow I don’t think that’ll end.
I think I’ll keep on figuring out my life even on my deathbed! There will always be something else to do. I don’t think there's an age limit to the journey.
I really like the book of Ecclesiastes. It’s kind of grim at a glance, but I really want to take a deeper dive as I reflect on my life. I’ve been working so hard for a degree. I’ve been worried about the future like I have any idea of where God may lead me. I feel rushed and also like there’s too much time all at once.
I look around at all the shiny pebbles of accomplishments I’ve collected and compare my pile with the people around me. Why don’t I have this one yet? Why do they have so many of that one?
How to Live:
King Solomon is the author of the book of Ecclesiastes, and God grants him one desire to be fulfilled. Solomon wisely asks for wisdom (he had enough wisdom to ask for wisdom), and he decides to understand the meaning of life.
As king, he has all the power, authority, and riches to pursue earthly pleasures. Things we all clamor for: he had at the tip of his finger tips. He finds the joys of these things beautiful but fleeting. They’re always escaping his grasp or losing their luster with time.
That brand new car we were so excited to finally drive finally gets some dings and scratches. The spouse we were longing for comes with their own scars and human frailty. The child we dreamed of has their own mind, will, and defiance against us. The job we were hoping to give us purpose has mundanity and doesn’t always satisfy. All the money we saved doesn’t bring us the peace or happiness we thought it would. All that once glittered does not stay gold.
Not only that but he finds himself in pursuit of knowledge and wisdom, and found it also a chasing after a wind. We learn and we learn, and then what? There’s never an end in sight, and all that knowledge doesn’t change the simple facts of life and death at the hands of God.
So he writes about his disdain for all of the things he chased after in hopes of finding meaning.
Solomon finds more peace in living in the present, not trying to get more or learn more, and leaving the rest to God. Whether we try hard or don’t try at all, isn’t it up to God what happens to us anyways? We save up all this money, and the next day we could lose our life. We work hard to build a legacy maybe even for our children, but all of that passes away one day too!
I’m not saying don’t plan or think of the future, but the future is not promised or secured. It’s not that you work hard, you save up, and you’re set. So many things are outside of our control. When COVID happened, it was a crazy period of life no one would have dreamed would’ve happened! Being prepared wasn’t an option, and a virus that not even the human eye could see was killing thousands of people worldwide. It’s better, to Solomon, to live a live pleasing to God each day and not live so attached to worldly attachments.
It’s harder said than done. I want to one day have a career, maybe even build my own practice, meet someone, and have a family of my own one day. Does this mean I should live a reckless life, cross my fingers, and hope for the best?
I think it’s a balance of wisdom: to know how much to sow away for a possible future but not to only live for the future. How can I just keep to God’s current beat for my life? What does it look like if I look for the next faithful step?
Timing is Everything
Ecclesiastes 3 has one of the most famous passages:
No matter what we do, a new season will be ushered in. Change is the only unchanging thing we can expect from this world. The minute I find myself acclimated to one season, I find myself thrusted into the next one and with little preparation. Just as I find comfort in one season, I’m removed from that warm embrace into whatever God throws at me. It’s a difficult process, but I find myself only able to trust in God’s presence wherever I go.
I wonder if God does that so we know the only stability, the only blessed assurance we could have, is found in Him. God makes seasons, but He’s not a seasonal God. He’s not different, He doesn’t change, and He’s never failed to be there.
It helps me to have a bigger picture in mind regarding my life. A season is just a season, good or bad. I don’t have any specific timeline to when one starts or ends, and usually it’s so blended I couldn’t tell even if I tried.
In spring/especially April, it rains a lot. I’m not a fan of rain. It makes my feet wet, I have to carry my umbrella around, and I’m cold. When I was hanging out with my friend the other day, before we ate she prayed “Thank You for the rain that waters the earth” and I was so moved. A season I found inconvenient, she saw the beauty and the importance of the rain. Sometimes other people have a different perspective of a season than we do. Sometimes we need our community to show us the good in a season we’re counting on ending.
Some seasons in my life I wish I could fast forward, and waiting on God can feel like a test of endurance. Yet, isn’t God teaching me something good in this season? In this season, it will not only nourish the future seasons, this season will be good. I may never get those good times back, and it’s hard to appreciate it unless we take a step back or we have someone on the outside look in and give us the eyes to see what blessings are here.
I always feel like future blessings must be better. I think it’s because it’s the hope that suffering ends in the future. The pain of waiting, the agony of difficult health or family situations, the erratic nature of others (and myself) that I can’t control, and just hoping that God makes something good out of all of this.
I’m learning the value of being present in each moment. Not looking too far back or trying to take a peek too far forward is like tight rope walking. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get it perfect, all I know is that in order to even try I need to willingly yield again and again.
My Life is Not For Me
Confession: I often hear that your 20s are your best, most formative years, and you should live it to the fullest. The fullest meaning is to do whatever you want with your life! Go travel, go have fun, and just be happy. I’m sad to say I do have this mindset more often than not, and I don’t think about what it means to belong to someone else.
“Bought at a price” is heavy language. I don’t own me: my time, my heart, my dreams, and my energy belong to someone else. I don’t just get to do whatever I want to do, and that can sound abusive and controlling if I don’t remind myself of the full story of the cross.
It’s hard because there are so many dreams and goals I have that I feel like are genuinely good, but I have to trust that God knows better. Giving up on what you want for your life or the people you thought you would have with you is never easy, but Jesus understands our pain. He understands the humanity of not getting things your way, and it’s in the cross that we can know that it’s empathy not sympathy He has for us in those moments.
I’m not saying I’ve got it all figured out. Living by faith and not by sight isn’t natural to me. Seeing sometimes feels as good as believing, but I pray God gives me the strength to look beyond what feels normal and feels right to have belief in Him.
Belonging to God feels good, it feels like I’m a sheep and He’s my shepherd. I might not like the boundaries He places, but they’re for my good -- even if the grass looks greener on the other side. There is a lot to say about growing pains when it comes to my journey of sanctification, and I’m grateful the most for grace! God’s grace over my life has been constant and unending. For all the times I screwed up, lost my way, or made the wrong choice, He redeemed, He restored, and He made a new way for me.
Belonging to God looks like not knowing your path in life but knowing the One who made your path walks with you through it. Ushering this era of my life is thrilling, and I pray that God would continue to show me more of Himself to come. It's exciting to know that somehow it'll all work out. That doesn't mean I get everything I wanted, actually it's the opposite, I get what God knows I needed to get through this life and onto the other side.
In the new heaven and new earth, I think I'd like to do the tradition where you give your first slice of cake to the person you love the most. I imagine myself surrounded by my spiritual family, the ones I got to know here and the ones I'll only meet there, and I will serve a slice to Jesus first. A silly dream for a silly girl turning 25.
Thank You Jesus, for a happy birthday, and for making me the kind of girl who has thoughts like these and shares them.
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