Birthday Eves

I have joked over and over again that God clearly must have had some really good reason to not give me the voice of Adele or Celine Dion; that there must be some hidden grace I cannot see yet in not allowing me to sing out and move people the way they do.

Ultimately, I want a “thing”. You know, that identifying gift, that honed skill, that specific talent.

I look around at people I deeply admire in my life, distant figures that I respect and people right up close around me, and their gifts seem so obvious, so clear. They are the people who seem to have found it and are running with it. Passionate and inspiring, and it seems like most of the time there’s a story about how that gift was noticeable from the earliest of ages.

And then there’s me.

Or at least that’s how it can feel when I catch myself wrestling with just wanting to find that “thing” that defines me, that marks me, that stands out.

The truth is that most of my life, I’ve been able to enjoy being just about or maybe just above average at a variety of things. I was not only blessed with opportunities to step into some of those different “spheres” of life but with parents that always made me feel like I was gifted in each one. And on most days, I feel so beyond thankful for the variety and color my life encompasses as a result.

But on those “other” days I find myself returning to that longing, that looking around and wondering, envying others’ defined abilities…

“What are mine?” I sit and ask myself. “How come I don’t know what to craft, what to hone?”

It’s on those days the term “well-rounded” feels like a trophy for last place.

And I’ve been wrestling with what to do with that, not knowing where to land.

Until today…

It kind of makes sense because it’s coming…every hour it draws closer.

My birthday that is.

And this year that means the number 29.

I am sure my good friends will read those lines and think they know exactly where this is all going now.

Something about a birthday, a changing from one age and stepping into another, has affected me deeply from my earliest memories. It has provided childhood stories to laugh about and wear out around the dinner table. It’s caused dearest friends to sometimes send a text the night before my birthday and not just on it, and it even got thrown into my sisters’ speech at my wedding. It’s kind of just one of my things.

And the hard part is that I find it hard to describe sometimes. It’s not depression about getting older, it’s not just a mourning of the past, or merely a resistance to change or fear of the future. Rather, it’s an overwhelming awareness and desire to freeze that precious in-between. A longing to linger in the space between two existences long enough to squeeze out every ounce of reflection.

And some ages just lend themselves to a heightened sense of that longing.

Like 29.

The last of the twenties. The end of an era.

It actually makes me flash back a decade to 19. I remember that one vividly. I could probably go right back to the exact square foot of carpet in a freshman dorm where I watched the looks on my friends’ faces turn to complete confusion when I started panicking as they announced the remaining minutes until my birthday. It was coming too fast, the in-between was shrinking and I couldn’t absorb it quick enough.

I remember a night months before with my teammate and friend, exploring together the significance of turning 19; the end of the teen years and what felt like the official last run of the portion of your life referred to as “childhood”.

And I can even go back farther and replay 9. The neon green numbers on the digital clock as a lay in my bunk bed calculating the minutes that remained. Trying to explain to my younger sister that 9 meant the last year of single digits, something that would NEVER happen again for the REST of my life.

And now here comes 29. The twenties’ finale, oh those roaring twenties that can take you on quite the roller coaster of rides. But as I reflect on the girl in that hotel room pondering 19, I’m humbled.

When I think about that year of 19, I see two versions. The first version is the one that played out in real time, the one that felt immensely imperfect as it passed, a mess of disappointments and confusions while also exciting and freeing. The second version is the one that can only be seen in retrospect. It’s the one that sees me risking writing out prayers that had remained buried deep in the hidden places of my soul. It’s the one that now sees God began to reveal what redemption really meant to a girl who needed to learn it. I clearly see that 19 was a year that God chose to make deep marks into my heart. And without that year, I don’t know what would have occurred in the years soon after… because even larger storms hit after 19.

Year 19 was an immense road of grace hidden from my view even as I walked down it.

The best part about turning 29 and reflecting on my twenties is actually not the handsome husband I gained, or the daughter I now kiss as I hold in my arms. It’s the realization that all I want is for God to take the next ten years and do more of what He did with the last. I want more Jesus. I want Him to keep taking what I think is lacking, keep taking the imperfect and the disappointing, and keep taking what I cling to so my arms are free to finally receive what He has for me… Himself. That’s a staggering, overwhelming, and soul-anchoring grace. And the longing for more is a grace itself.

So on this birthday eve I know where I land.

If God can somehow use my above average at best, He can have every last ounce of it.

Because this girl is okay if her “thing” is constantly being reminded all I want is more of Him.

#growing #comparison #thankfulness #time #transition