On Turning Thirty

Ok, I admit it, I turn THIRTY this weekend. ACK! My impending birthday has caused much personal reflection and I am not sure what I am feeling about all of this. I think of the fact that I will be thirty in just a couple of days and think...wow, can I be that old already :-) (I know that made many of you cringe...I am sorry) I mean, am I really an official adult now? In many ways I surely don't feel like it. Then I think wow, ONLY thirty. I mean in thirty years I have been through some really tough things and have been forced to mature very quickly. In some ways I feel younger and in some ways I feel older if that makes any sense.

Every girl thinks about what life will be like when she reaches thirty and I have to say as I look around at the portrait of my life, I would not have predicted any of it. I can remember being in college and thinking about where I would be in ten years. I imagined living far from home (I live oh, less than five miles from my childhood home), I imagined teaching in a middle school and coaching cheerleading, (um...I change diapers and have seen Bring it On), I imagined being married (check!), I imagined having several children, having completed my family, living in the house with the picket fence and a dog. (As it turns out I have had four children, said goodbye to two of them before I was able to bring them home, I do love my home built by my husband's amazing hands, a picket fence would look ridiculous, and as it turns out, I am NOT a fan of pets so the dog thing...not so much) I envisioned what I thought to be the perfect life. I would be the woman who had it all, balanced it all, and was exceedingly happy. I would work full time, be a great mom who makes cupcakes and homemade cookies, I would be in grad school, I would ALWAYS make dinner from scratch, wearing an apron like June Cleaver.

I was naieve. As the third decade of my life comes to a close I look at my life and while many of those things just make me chuckle, I know I am blessed. I have lost much, I have gained much. I get to be the wife to the most amazing middle school teacher on the planet (I know, HE TOOK MY JOB!) I get to be the mom two four of the greatest little boys ever and I get to serve a God who has been the one and only constant in the stormy times, who lavishes his grace upon me even when I feel He has abandoned me.

As I turn thirty, I look forward to the decades to come. I look forward to the months to come. I look at what God has done in the past thirty years and look forward to the next thirty!