After 37 Years, Here are a Few Things I Know

Today I turn 37. And it’s got me all reflective, asking those questions that seem to surface as we mark the years.

Have I done enough? Have I spent my years well? Am I where I thought I would be?  

I’m not sure I actually know the answers to those questions or care to spend much time thinking about them, but here are a few things I do know after being gifted with 37 years.

 

There is so much I don’t know. 

I open God’s word and I am simultaneously humbled, in awe and embarrassed. How do I still not know this? I’ve read this book, been fed this book, for nearly all of my 37 years and yet there is so much that I don’t know, don’t understand, can’t comprehend. And yet somehow I know that it also a gift that I don’t – that I get to keep learning – that the word of God is living and active.

Matt Chandler says we should look at time spent studying God’s word more like a savings account than a debit account. I’m beginning to understand the fruit of that as I teach my own children, pulling from Truths planted so many years ago.  The opportunity to keep knowing God and studying His word is gift I’m more passionate about now than ever before. I want to keep reading, learning, studying, for 37 more years.

 

A good marriage is worth every effort.

I don’t have a perfect marriage, but I do have a very, very good one.  And for too many of these 37 years I’ve not known, understood, or realized what an incredible gift this is. I’ve picked at small things, wished for different things, focused on other things, but I’m finally beginning to get this marriage thing. I’m finally beginning to understand what it means to love unconditionally, how there are so many things that aren’t worth arguing about, how we can do things differently, view things differently and God can drench the darn whole mess of us with grace if we keep seeking Him through all of it. The refinement of our marriage has been the refinement of me.  I want to be married, to this same man, for 37 more years.

There is enough time.

This might be the hardest truth for me, the one I need continually reminded of as I’m bent on efficiency and maximizing my productivity, to a fault.

Each time I flip through one of the kids photo albums I feel the physical effects of time slipping though my fingers. How does that even happen? I do the math in shaky jumps. If I just blinked four years away, then in four more he’ll be driving and she’ll be a teenager, the next one will be shortly behind and the youngest will barely be young anymore, each of them ready to rush right on out the door. I kind of hate photo albums right now.

But this time He has given me is all appointed. I was born for such a time as this and He is teaching me to number my days. I wish not to squander the days or mourn them, not to waste the time or strangle it, but instead to stare it down bravely and know that it is enough.

It is always worth offering what you have, from right where you are. 

I know I haven’t always understood this, believed this. It has taken me years in the learning to understand God blesses the offering. He takes it and makes it. He does big stuff with humble obedience. But we will waste our days, our years, our lives, if we are always waiting until everything is right to offer it. When we offer ourselves humbly he magnifies it and he is glorified because of it. This is the proper setup. I want to keep offering for 37 more years.

 

I pray I stay curious. 

I read a great chapter in A Family Shaped by Grace last night (Releases in just one week, but you can pre-order your copy now!) that talked about the importance of staying curious in relationships – asking questions, listening carefully, being genuinely interested in the people we are related to. And I’m pretty sure that may apply to all of life as well.

Yesterday a friend’s farmer husband brought me a bunch of buds from a grape vine because I was asking about them recently. He took the time to explain to me that the buds become these tiny flowers and the flowers become these tiny grapes and the tiny grapes becomes these weighty bunches that they will harvest in a few months. I live in a valley laden with grapes, they push right into the property line of my backyard. And I never knew. There is so much more I want to know, but much of what I have learned has come from simply asking questions. I want to stay curious for 37 more years.

I pray I never stop choosing brave.

Choosing brave has been one of the most fun and challenging and unexpected adventures of my life. For over two years now I’ve been writing in this space and thousands of you have come to learn and read and grow, right along with me. What an honor to do the thing that scares you, to do the thing God is calling you to and be encouraged by like minded women along the way. What a wonder how the inter webs have breached miles and borders to grow community and spread hope.

This is the very evidence of Christ doing stuff with small offerings. Christ doing stuff with a girl who prayed Anything while her legs were shaking, her voice was cracking, scared.

Some days we think the internet, the whole world, has gone sour. That waste and ugliness leak in from every direction and have just about covered the whole expanse of it. But you, yes you, remind me that it hasn’t. There is so much good here. There are so many of us, choosing Christ, fearing God and eager to learn how best to live that concept of wild obedience, intentional faithfulness, in the seasons and situations we find ourselves. That is encouraging.

 

So as I embark on my 38th year (my husband likes to say that to make me feel older than I am…and I choose to love him anyway), I am ridiculously thankful, for all I’ve learned and the masses more I have yet to learn. I look forward to the opportunity to know Christ more, the gift of learning how to love well and live well, the to chance to be a more honorable wife, a more loving mother, a faithful friend, daughter, leader and follower.

There is part of me that wants to wish for more years, at least 37 more years, to keep growing and knowing, learning and living. But the greatest gift this year seems to e the peace in knowing it’s enough. All the days and years I get, whether it’s 2 or 10 or another 37, it will most certainly be enough, because He is enough.  And I’ll keep walking in that truth daily. Bravely.

Thank you for walking with me.