Thirty Two

Written last Wednesday on my thirty second birthday.

I’m 32 today. It’s such an odd day. I have my feet up on a table in a coffee shop on Alki beach, where I have already been for a few hours. But my heart is far away, way over on that island I see across the sound. My friend had a tragic loss yesterday and I cannot stop this crushing chest pain I have for them. I cannot just steal away to do my birthday or go to dessert with friends. Maybe that’s fitting since I have struggled since probably my 30th birthday with special days that are supposed to celebrate me. I made feeling special too important. I prepared my heart a little better for my birthday this year and prepared myself to battle my expectations that buzz around my heart like knats, declaring that it’s not enough.

So with sober perspective with the news from my friend, the knats just dropped to the floor. The buzzing expectations were silenced, as they should be. I am blessed to be alive, so I need to stop being all about me and learn to live to serve others in love. That’s why Jesus wants me to be here anyway.

I guess what I am trying to write about is what this year has been all about. My thirty second year. What has it looked like. Who was I. As daughter, woman, wife, mom, friend, sister, on and on. What was different. How did I grow. How do I look different now than when I was 22. Or even 31.

Some things weren’t different. My shoes are still the same. (Because I still hate shoe shopping, no matter how out of style I get. Actually I did get a compliment on my light brown shin high boots the other day and I laughed b/c they are like six years old and somehow back in style). My addictions to coffee and being alone and gardening and good good friends are the same. I still like to write incessantly, except no one would know that because it’s mostly a collection of things on Word and not my blog. I have gotten back into good ol journaling with the introduction of the moleskin and it’s gloriously floppy pages. I can’t think of any other reason why “floppy” would make me so happy but when it comes to journals it makes my insides take a deep breath of delight. I still like a light rain when I am reading or a heavy rain that lasts for three minutes. A good dose of a garden nursery will put me on cloud nine for at least an hour, which is a long time to be joyful for a melancholic ;). I still really need dates with my husband and now really need dates with each of my kids too. I still have long long hair and don’t plan on cutting it anytime soon because I think I have finally learned how to fix it, which is maybe my biggest miracle of my thirties so far. I still don’t exercise (oops) and the only type I miss is hiking, which I am hoping will change this summer. I still go to bed at 10:30 and sort of can’t function except to blink my eyes and have minimal brain function after nine o’clock pm.

Silly little different things. I am getting up early and though it’s painful the first few minutes and I have almost crazy schitzophrenic conversations wildly dancing in my head about why I should or should not get up, in the end I do enjoy being up before everyone else. Go figure, Proverbs 31. Maybe I did something right this year after all ;). I have started to eat much healthier and actually have enjoyed the food network, reading cookbooks, looking at ingredient labels, and trying out new recipes to help our family stay healthier. (But confession – I still think we all deserve treats fairly frequently and for my birthday I bought myself a big slice of chocolate cake with a container of mint chocolate cookie icecream. No guilt whatsoever and it was delicious). I am back to my five year old days of perferring pink and purple. But mostly pink. Any shade. Anyway, lots of things have changed, but let’s get on to the real change. You know me :).

One year ago I was…not doing well. I mean, I was blessed beyond belief with a new son and surprised by the gift of his life. But I did not handle the blessing well. I floundered with my overwhelming responsibilities and life with three little children age two and under. I needed a lot of help and a lot of perspective. I also needed a lot of grace that even though my life with the girls had changed, and I could grieve that, we would all grow together now into something different and good. I remember after eight weeks of having some sort of help every single day, there finally came the first day I had to do it on my own. Instead of doing that, I asked like five moms to come on over, with all of their kids. And they did, and it was a zoo, but I needed the company. Somehow a zoo felt more desirable than the four of us. I was just scared. And then when I tried my “first day” at home with the kids for a second time, I did it and I was okay…but it was hard and it took a while to adjust. But eventually I got the hang of having three, with lots of grace.

One of my biggest appreciations last year (and actually the year prior too) was my accountability group. We focused only on confession as well as what God was teaching us. It kept me close to something I have needed to cling to: repentance. Jason and I have described parenthood as a pressure cooker and I feel like last year I learned a crucial part to coming out of this season a different person, rather the same with lots of ugly and that’s just that I need to stay in humble confession of my sins. I have been learning (and it’s not over) to be more genuinely saying I’m sorry for ___ and asking a lot, a lot, a lot more sincerely for forgiveness. And stopping there. Just dealing with my side. Having peace with God that I am being faithful to respond to his Spirit about ME and then STOPPING. I am still working on this but I feel fruit forming. And it feels like maybe the most right thing I have done in a while. My husband would account that I have a lot more to learn in this area, and I surely do. Lord take me further.

One of my biggest revelations in motherhood is that I am teaching my kids what the Lord is always teaching me. We do one bible verse per week and then lots of instruction and discipline in between from loving your brother and sister, to sincerely apologizing, to asking for forgiveness, to forgiving, to rejoicing with one another, to grieving when we’ve hurt one another, to obeying, to being kind and compassionate, to being completely humble and gentle, to being willing to share. I have not perfected one thing I am teaching them. I am a child in the spirit too. I have a Father who is raising me. He is parenting me with his Spirit daily, moment by moment. And I MUST STAY HUMBLE with my children, revealing to them when I am wrong and when I sin against them and when I am not obeying God. I know I am the worst, most disobedient children out of all of us, so I cannot lord over them in their sin. I must confess my own when it is against them. And staying low helps me to not “punish” and demean and roll my eyes at them, but it keeps me burdened for them to grow and change and “get it” and be saved by Jesus one day.

A recent blessing is that our bible study group took a spiritual gifts test and I was really surprised by the results. It’s probably been ten years since I took one and although my “old” strengths were the same (discernment and prophesy), they were not #1, 2 or even 3. They were like four and five out of like 15 different giftings. They still scored super high but I had new highs. #1 was shepherding. #2 was encouragement and #3 was exhortation. The definitions really really helped me. Shepherding is “the capacity to guide and nurture an individual or group to grow in faith.” Encouragement is “the capacity to give reassurance and support.” Exhortation is “the capacity to stimulate faith and promote Christian maturity in others.” When I finished the test and saw my results, I was shocked at first but then felt really at peace. Yes, discernment and prophesy are in me. Nobody who knows me would doubt that :). Yes, teaching is in me; it’s a heartbeat of mine. But this shepherding thing is always always always on my mind. How can I guide x person. How can I nurture growth in x situation. How can I guide x group to maturity about x. Now that I have learned x, how can I be patient to wait for that in others. It’s forever on my mind and heart and in my words and conversations. I cannot cannot cannot escape that this is part of me, compelling me, moving me forward in relationships and in groups. And it feels good and to see it on paper makes me feel not crazy or controlling but just that as I abide in Christ, this is a Spirit thing. And it feels right to walk in it.

In that I will say that I have thought a lot this year about how I am “bent”…both spiritually and also how I bend when I am seeing life sinfully. I have really appreciated how Kalle and Annie have described me recently b/c it has helped me to have better understanding of what tends to be a more melancholic side of me. K says that I see the world (or a person) how it (or they) were intended to be, and how things should be. So instead of just saying I am a downer about things or generally kind of despairing or seeming to never stop with my expectations, it truly is a lot deeper than just having trouble being joyful. I have Kingdom eyes. I long for what we should be, how I should be, how it would have all been without sin. And I guess I long for…heaven! For our glorified selves. And I long for what Christ can accomplish in us while we are still here. It burdens me greatly and when I use this gifting rightly, I am very prayerful, hopeful, discerning, shepherding, careful with my words, counseling, and intentional. When I use this lense but with sinful eyes, I get super disappointed and tired and emotionally unsteady and untrusting and disgusted and hopeless and despairing. Quite a difference. It has helped me immensely to have my friends help me to define what is going on there. For them to help me see a spiritual gifting there and to also help me see how I can be bent sinfully when I am not abiding in Christ.

If you looked at my relationship with the Lord this year I can say confidently it has looked very different than other years. Something definitely turned a corner in my heart this year. Quiet times were not these little sweet devotions. They were not irrelevant studies that I had a hard time making practical by the time I got to the application question. “Quiet times” this year, if you can call them that, were intensely desperate for me. It is interesting to me that the longer I know Jesus the more I need to connect with him during the day to feel like I can get through the day. I have desperately, desperately needed, wanted, prayed that his Scripture was REAL this year. That they were not just words or even distant truths but if they were real and living and active, sharp enough to divide my soul and spirit, that he would use them to change my life. If 1 Co 1:9 says that He who called me into fellowship with his Son is faithful, then I have been desperate to experience and grasp and exist with a peace of his faithfulness. If Romans 4 says that God is the God who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist, then when I look at my dead heart that is so selfish in my marriage with Jason, then I am desperate to know that he can call into existence a selflessness and gracious spirit into my life. When Romans 15:13 says that the God of all hope can give me joy and peace as I trust in him so that I may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit, it doesn’t just sound nice to me…I WANT that desperately and I feel my insides clawing for it if I am indeed able to have that. I feel myself looking at God’s promises especially the second half of this year, not with doubt or irritation or distance, but with a great hope and request and expectation in my spirit, that He who wrote the Scriptures will indeed make them come alive in my heart and in my behavior and my life. I am looking constantly to have my mind renewed, one small piece of Scripture at a time. I find myself sloooowing down. Reading less verses, meditating more. Praying verses more. Asking for the gift of faith more. Landing on life verses like Romans 15:13 and praying them often. And lately the closest one to me is being prayerful for JOY and HOPE.

So I’d say that carrying over into my thirty third year I am expectant for some fruit of this new time with the Lord for certain. I am hoping that next year I will be writing more about a promise carried out from Romans 15:13, that the God of all hope would give me joy and peace as I trust in him, so that I would overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. I am praying that I would overflow with hope. That as I see into relationships and my marriage and my children’s eyes and my friends’ lives, that even as I see how we need to grow and change and lean into Jesus, that I would simultaneously be quicker to light up with an expectant hope about what Jesus is capable of doing. He gave me this heart but he also gives me this hope. Here’s to 32 and a joyful hope to come.