Twentysomething

Tomorrow I turn THIRTY.

Wow.  

The beginning of an entirely new decade.  While I always anticipated being reluctant to hit this birthday, it really just feels like any other year!  Maybe that's because my hubby turned thirty several years ago, or because my twenties have been so full that it just seems right that they are coming to a close.  Either way, whether I like it or not, time keeps moving forward and I am another year--another decade--older.  

Let's recap my twenties, why don't we?  In my twenties I...

• Got engaged 
• Graduated from OBU with a BA in Family Psychology, and with a certainty that I now had absolutely zero desire to be a marriage and family therapist...oops 
• Got married 
• Worked as a special education teacher 
• Traveled Europe with my husband for two months straight 
• Moved to Waco, Texas, and earned a master's degree in Higher Education Administration
• Discovered Bible Study Fellowship
• Experienced loss of dear family members and employment
• Worked as a hall director and adjunct instructor at my alma mater 
• Traveled to Australia and New Zealand 
• Got a dog 
• Moved to Memphis 
• Worked as the Greek Life and Community Service Advisor at the University of Memphis 
• Traveled to Maine and Quebec and came home with a special souvenir 
• Became a mother to Riggins Thomas 
• Left my job to become a stay-at-home mom
• Became a mother (again!) to Rhett Matthew
• Watched Jonathan earn his Doctor of Pharmacy degree
• Moved to Oklahoma

That list seems so cut-and-dried, and yet with each bullet I could write volumes about how the experience brought change and maturity.  The process was not always pretty, but I am a different woman than I was when I celebrated my twentieth birthday as a junior in college.  

I sometimes cringe when I consider that girl.  Marriage, employment, academic pursuits, relationships, motherhood, and the tender hand of my heavenly Father have continued to make me new.  They have sanded away at my rough edges and brought slow but (hopefully) steady progress in the journey of becoming more like Christ.  They have brought self-awareness and others-awareness that I lacked in my younger years.  

And the exciting thing is that thirty is still young!  Lord willing, I have several more decades for His refining work to continue in me.  When I think of how different I am at 30 compared to 20, I am excited to see who I will be at 40.  My prayer for this next decade is that God would keep me teachable and malleable, always growing and improving, while being ever mindful of my desperate dependence on him for all things.