30 years. 3 decades.
I finally reached it. Actually, reached it about 2 months ago. It’s still sinking in, I think. Or perhaps I just haven’t stopped to let it sink in.
Birthdays are like my New Years. They are the days I stop and reflect and look back and figure out what I’d like a new year for me to look like.
I haven’t really done that yet. Not for year 30.
Since the day I turned 30, it has literally been a nonstop roller coaster of events. I can count on one hand, maybe both, the evenings I’ve had free in the last couple of months. Don’t get me wrong, I like being busy, and I chose what I allowed to go on. Work, second work, Whole30, 5k training, 2 Shakespeare plays, some semblance of a social life, and hitting up NYC in there somewhere…..I haven’t really stopped.
I need to just….
Stop.
Take a breath.
30 years.
That’s a long time. Yet, it’s not.
It’s gone by in a vapor. Yet to relay all of the paths God has led me down makes my head spin and seems like lifetimes crammed into those years.
I’m reminded how things just happen in the suddenness of a breath. Life can turn on a dime. Plans interrupted. Doors you never saw opening. You’re one place and you marvel how you even got there.
I look back and see the intricate fingerprints of a God Who not only guided me but created the paths that have brought me to where I am. My mind is too small to comprehend. His ways are certainly higher than mine.
The 30 short years I’ve been here haven’t been easy, obviously. You can look at all my previous posts and seen a glimpse of that. I can still recall some really vivid arguments and shouting matches I’ve had with God. But if I’ve learned one thing in the 30 years, it’s this:
God is sovereign and God is good.
How those two qualities work out, I can’t always give you a solid answer. But I can tell you my story. I can tell you about the times I was grasping and gasping in the darkness when a pinprick of Light gave me the tiniest of hope that so filled my heart I couldn’t escape it. I can tell you how in despairing times when I wanted to walk away so badly He was holding so tightly onto me and never let go. I can tell you there’s no deeper joy than when you fully realize just how much you are loved.
I’m only just 30 and feel like I’ve only scratched the glaze of the surface, but I do know that: I am loved. Really, truly loved. Nothing in this world can separate me from that.
When I do actually stop, breathe, reflect, it’s scary. Fear wants to break in. To show me the failures, the doubts, the dark, the wanderings. To show me where I could or should be right now but am not.
But looking back, I can stop, breathe, reflect, and know for certain that God is sovereign, God is good, and I am loved. God hasn’t failed me, but placed me exactly where I’m supposed to be.
These truths have stuck closer than my skin, even during the times I couldn’t see or feel them. Jesus has stuck closer than my own heart, even when He seemed elusive.
Because really, in the end, it was never about me anyway. It’s not the amount of my faith, but the Object.
That is what the last 30 years has shown me, and I will never escape that.
And as I look and move forward, I know I’ll need those exact truths in the next 30 years.
sparrowlandings 