The Year of Being 30

As I look back on the last year of my life, I thought it might be nice to process through a little the good and the bad, the triumphs and the challenges. Because, no life is without both of those things, and they are important to remember and grow from. So, some of the best things about being 30 were:

• My furlough. It was so good to be home for a few months, to rebuild relationships and form new ones. To get to visit my three best friends and reconnect with others. To get Godly council from a variety of people. I have many precious memories from those 5 months, and have been greatly blessed by them.

• I took my first solo road trip, and got to visit many places like Bath, Philadelphia, Colorado, and Northern Indiana for the first time. I love to travel, and this was certainly a good year for traveling!

• The same can be said for pretty much the last 15 years of my life, but I knit a lot of fun projects, read a lot of good books (Blackout, All Clear, Questioning Evangalism, 100 Cupboards, Six of Crows), saw some great movies (Hidden Figures, Rogue One, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty), and heard a lot of good music (Hamilton, Audrey Assad) for the first time last year. Oh--and I bought a spinning wheel!

• I walked (with a pinch of jogging) To Write Love on Her Arm’s 5k in April. Through various circumstances I have become very aware of how many hurting people are out there who are unlikely to ever get help for various reasons; I want to be a voice of hope to those who are in a dark place, and to do what I can use my own hardships to make me more sensitive to others.

• While I was home, one of the things I did was to substitute teach at a Classical Christian School in my hometown. I so enjoyed seeing how another school runs, reconnecting with people I know, and to get to know some of the kids a little. The 8th graders were my favorites!

• Another of the best things about being home was the many, many churches I got to visit with my different friends and family members. It was refreshing to be in English services, and exciting to see living, growing bodies of Christ in many different flavors. I am so thankful for all those worship services and sermons.

Some of the hard things about being 30:

• This was my hardest birthday to face, and it was particularly difficult because I was still grieving a loss. Because of the circumstances of my life at present, I often feel downright old, and turning 30 felt a little bit like a death knell. I had always hoped that my life would look rather different by this point, and in some ways it felt like I had not achieved as much as I could have/aught to have.

• In all honesty, coming back to the school was pretty much the hardest thing I have ever done. There are a lot of factors in this situation, and I am so thankful that the Lord confirmed that it was His will for me to come back before I got on the plane, and He has shown me some other reasons why I needed to come back. So, while it was hard, God is faithful.

• Being away from my family is a constant ache, and last year was no exception. My family is not perfect (after all, I’m in it), but I wouldn’t trade them for the world.

To finish off, here are a few of my favorite pictures from the year of 30:

Things I have learned in three decades of living

* Life is weird, wild, beautiful, painful, and wonderful, sometimes (okay often!) all at once. Despite the risk, I’d rather have my breath taken away by living, than by refusing to live fully.

* Living for Jesus means the greatest joys and the deepest pains. Ditto for living with His people.

* Life is too short to read bad books except as a way of dealing with the madness of your personal world for a very brief time.

* Life is also too short to drink bad cups of tea, or to listen to cheesey/elevator/lame music for more time than you can possibly help.

* There is a BIG difference between being needed and appreciated.

* When you are a control freak/hater of half-assery, your life is going to be a whole lot harder than everyone else’s…

* People are enormously important, and having good friends with whom you are safe to be absolutely yourself is vital.

* No on is perfect, including myself or my family, and since we are all imperfect, people will disappoint you, and you will disappoint yourself and others. Sad result of living in a fallen world, Errare est humanum.

* That being said, people will always surprise you—for good or ill!
“My dear Frodo!’ exclaimed Gandalf. ‘Hobbits really are amazing creatures, as I have said before. You can learn all that there is to know about their ways in a month, and yet after a hundred years they can still surprise you at a pinch.” –J. R. R. Tolkien

* The ability to effectively communicate is pretty much priceless, and despite all the educating we do, surprisingly rare.

* Know theyself, and be thus armed against thine own follies and failings. When I think of the grief I could have saved myself by knowing how I tend to respond in certain situations…

* Showing someone the better, higher, smarter way does not mean that they will choose it, or even value it. Also, giving someone an excellent education doesn’t necessarily mean that it will do them any good. Anyone can play ‘water off a duck’s back’ with knowledge and like the Humbug come out of the Sea of Knowledge pretty dry…

* Knitting can be almost as expensive as drugs, but it sure is a more productive hobby, and how many knitting addicts have you heard of going to jail? Why do you think I haven’t been arrested yet?

* It is totally possible to be tired of being in school, but still have a passion for learning.

* While I love both cats and dogs, if I had to choose just one to have as a pet, it would be a cat. Cats take more character to appreciate, and while sometimes I want to banish mine to Alaska, I couldn’t live without my lil’ Java Bean.

And finally, 'cause she is totally my hero,

Father's Day 2015

I think most kids growing up tend to feel more understood by one parent than the other. Most kids go to one parent for sympathy, permission, and to share confidences. One parent’s way of saying, “I love you,” is easier to understand, so you feel closer to them. Growing up, I felt more understood by my mom. We had similar interests, similarities of personality, and since I was homeschooled she was home far more than my dad. I have always loved my dad, but I saw him as somewhat stern figure of justice. He was always working—not because he was caught up in his ‘wonderful’ job, but because he was providing for us. I didn’t understand him very well for many years—I couldn’t hear the subtext to all those hours of labor, and I couldn’t understand why he didn’t the energy for us that other kid’s dads seemed to.

As I got older, I was expected to help my dad with his cleaning job at the church we then attended. For the next few years I learned a lot of useful custodial skills from how to clean windows properly to how to extract carpets and strip floors. And as I worked beside my dad I saw some new sides of him—his attention to details, his leadership by example not commands, and how he was trying to pass on responsibility to us. I hating having to work every Friday night, but I was beginning to understand better what my dad was trying to teach us with the way he was raising us.

A few years later I spent a terrible summer working two retail jobs while I waited for the on-line education course I was doing to start up. I opened and worked mornings at the one place, and worked evenings and closing at the other. This was a very dark time for me for many reasons, and I did not handle the stress and emotional exhaustion very well. After spending all day being pleasant to rude, demanding, and sometimes stupid people, I had a hard time being nice to my family once I got home. I began to understand why my father was so tired by the time he got home, and why he sometimes seemed withdrawn. Goodness, I wasn’t doing a better job in easier circumstances!

Now that I am older, my perspective has shifted yet more, and I can now see things that I never understood when I was a child. My dad’s love language is deeds of service, and my whole life has been one long symphony of the theme, “I love you.” All those hours of lawn mowing, cleaning jobs, and fighting a loosing battle against a tough job (yet never giving in), was my dad saying, “I love you so much that I’m giving you the chance to be home educated and always be provided for.” All those times he made me do things I didn’t want to or was afraid to was my dad saying, “I love you and want you to be a functioning adult.” All those times when I thought was being unreasonable, he was saying, “I love you and want you to be able to stand up in the face of the enormous pressures of the adult world.” My father is one of the last selfish people that I know, a real life George Baily, and I couldn’t be more proud of him or more glad to call him Daddy. The older I get, the more of my father I discover in myself, for good and ill. Thank you God for giving me such a wonderful earthly father who has deepened my appreciation for Your love for me. I don’t know what I’d do without him, and I am fiercely proud to be his daughter.