Thirty Years

Some of the bloggers I read write posts like "What I Know About Marriage After 16 Years" or "37 Birthday Pearls."

I turned thirty earlier this week and I think I'm going to write "What I Don't Know After 30 Years of Life"

I mean, I could definitely come up with some pretty important lessons that I've learned over the years. But recently, I've been humbled (again...sigh). I don't know why I bother having such passionate, strong opinions, because I frequently end up having to change them. It's normal to go about life thinking you're right about most things. Its really remarkable when people are willing to engage the thought that they might be wrong about something. Oh, I try.

Anyway, I've been reflecting back on the past 30 years of my life. There are certainly an abundance of happy memories and wonderful blessings that have brought me to where I am today. But really what I think about when I look back at my life is the massive amount of grace that is woven through every fiber. Like. Everything. I think about the seasons of deep and profound pain that I have been through. And like many people, I have had many. My early childhood seemed "normal" to me in that I just assumed parents fought like mine did. I didn't realize what I was living in was very abnormal and unhealthy. And when I was shaken out of that fantasy when my dad initiated a divorce from my mother, I was then thrown into a complete wreck of a game....my siblings and I became the pawn in my parents battles against one another. Needless to say, it was traumatizing, tragic, and completely disorienting and disillusioning. Yet, even in those dark, hopeless, barren times, I was being gently held in God's hands. I went to a school that was a safe place among the turmoil. I had incredible friends, whom I now appreciate even more because I realize how much less trouble we got into as teenagers than we could have. And if there was ever an "at-risk" teenager, I was one of them. As I've grown older and become aware of some of the things kids typically encounter, especially when they aren't receiving what they need at home, I am completely baffled that I didn't get mixed up into all sorts of harmful things. And I am in no way bragging about it. I really believe if it weren't for God's grace, I would have chosen any number of things that would have ultimately harmed me greatly. It had nothing to do with me or my good choices. It was simply the profound mystery of God at work in my life.

And I couldn't even calculate how improbable it was for me to meet Chuck. The fact that I ended up going to school at Covenant College on Lookout Mountain, GA took a whole series of miracles upon miracles. I mean, I know this is how life works, each decision or outcome effects the next one which effects the next one and so on and so forth. But I could trace back the improbablity all the way to like, my parents choice of schooling...for my older brothers and then me. And all those things almost HAD to happen for me to have even crossed paths with Chuck's.

It's probably the pessimist in me that, when looking back at my life, I usually think first of the hard times. My parents divorce, struggling to keep relationships with my parents amidst all the wreckage of their divorce, choosing to go against my family with several of my decisions (like religion, choice of spouse, college choice, ya know...really trivial stuff), my church and family just utterly failing me while I was going through postpardum depression and Chuck's parent's divorce (I sometimes wonder if it was the chicken or the egg scenario because I don't know that the depression would have come out if I hadn't been so poorly supported by these groups in the first place).

Anyway, I can compare myself to others and think I've got it easy. And still with others, I would seem like I've really had a hard time at life. It doesn't really matter. I have my one life and no one else's. At the end of the day, I can easily trace back countless numbers of things that are profoundly good, but that never would have happened if I hadn't been through those painful, barren times.

Some of the very best things in my life would, could, never have been available to me if I hadn't slogged through the tumultuous times.

And here's where we get to the part where I still haven't learned anything. After I had some distance between me and my parent's divorce, I had a much clearer vision of how God can still be present in your life even if you don't feel him, see him, or hear from him at all. That he can be cradling you in his arms all the while a hellscape is swirling around you. And I held fast to that realization. What a gift to finally feel like I saw God's hand at work in my life. Until another storm hit. And if it's a mediocre one, I'm fairly okay with holding on to my faith and at least conceding that God is still at work and hasn't abandoned me. But when things are really, really messy, well, that's when I jump ship. Like I start thinking that that idea I had about God taking care of me and being inherently good was a cute thought, but clearly it's not true or he wouldn't be allowing me to feel this way or face this challenge. Some troubles just cause you to question almost everything you thought you knew.

And that's the beauty of this grace thing. He keeps taking me back. He keeps holding on to me even when I shake my fist at him and curse his name. He doesn't leave.

That's why I'm a Christian. No where else can you find this kind of love. This love that has no parameters. No conditions. No limits. All I have is crap to offer. And God receives me anyway and calls me his beloved.

And when I'm on the other side of the mess, all I can do is thank God for bringing me to it and carrying me through it. Because it gives me another chance to see him and feel his love. And when you have that, you realize you'd go through anything to hold onto it.

Until the next catastrophe, that is! (Oh Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner...)

I'd love if someday I could say that, yeah, I went through some really profoundly dark time and didn't question God. That'd be great, but seems impossible. I'll probably be writing about this same thing when I turn 40, 50, 60. I don't think I'll ever learn.

I've embedded songs through Grooveshark here but it seems like a lot of times it works for a while and then the link breaks. Hopefully that won't be the case here. It's a song by Plumb called, "Need You Now" and it really resonates with me. Listen! Be changed!