Aging

31

October 8, 2022 / 4 Comments
Taylor asked me last night over our microwaved Indian dinner, a single candle burning on the table, in a random but lovely Airbnb on the outskirts of Nairobi’s National Park, how this last year has been. I told him honestly this hasn’t been my most favorite year, despite all of the good and exciting that did take place. It has felt, well, heavy.
 
I thought of all the tragedies and hardships dear friends have faced – cancer ripping through bodies, families’ hearts being ripped out as their babies are buried, dashed hopes and dreams ripping through every thought as friends wait for babies that cannot yet be created, persecution ripping apart lives that have claimed their true Creator, or mental demons ripping already broken families even further apart. It’s not supposed to be this way.
 
I also thought back to the relentless migraines that plagued my own head for eight weeks straight, the revving anxiety increasing inside of me yet again, the heightened emotions of my own heart confronted by the same ones mirrored in my four year old, the releasing of control as we release adoption papers into the seeming abyss, or the constant beckoning of little failures here and there (I’m too much, or I’m not enough, or… etc etc etc) that I revisit when the sun sinks low and the littles are fast asleep and I’m there alone with my raw thoughts. It’s also not supposed to be this way. It’s just not. But, it is all too often our reality this side of eternity.
 
I also thought of how 31 feels more like an official ushering in to my 30’s, a little less glamorous than a fancy milestone of “30 & flirty” (also hats off to you ladies to who that statement rings true, while I on the other hand was spending year 30 chasing a naked potty training son around the house, adopting massive rabbits because my kiddos literally loved their previous baby bunny to death, and running circles around my kitchen because a rat had made his residence there and felt emboldened to come out of his hiding while I was making popcorn… not feeling super “flirty” in those moments!).
 
But it does feel I have been entering a new era of figuring out who the close-to-middle-age, adult Jessica is. A re-learning of what dying to myself means in this season so I can honor my God in the big and little things to which He has called me. And how that has been harder than I previously thought it would be – living faithfully in the mundane but still dreaming big for how the little seeds inside of me could be watered and grown for His kingdom purposes. And being ok if they don’t ever grow in the way I wanted.
 
And you know what conclusion I came to, through all of this?
 
I’m still waking up this morning so grateful. Knowing it’s ok to not be fully ok. Because I know where my hope lies. And ultimately, it’s not in my circumstances or how well my year is going or how I’m feeling today. Not to wrap those aching realities in positive platitudes, but to realize it won’t always be this way, and that we have a heavenly Father who aches alongside our earthly laments.
 
Don’t get me wrong, the hard stuff is not all there is by any means. My weathered journal on this day of 10/08/22 is now being filled with an array of beauties I’m cherishing because life is also precious if we have but eyes to see. But that’s not the purpose of this specific stream of consciousness right now. I want those who are hurting to know you have a God who sees you in it, and loves you through it, and is strong enough for you while you face it.
 
Because for the past three to five years, He who began a good work in me has deconstructed my false beliefs of His character and built anew a stronger scaffolding to which I can continue climbing and clinging in confidence. The striving loosening a little more as I learn to restfully strive, knowing I have been entrusted by my loving Savior with extravagant grace – my Savior, the one who left perfection and entered into this mess so that we could be made right with a perfect God because He so deeply loves us? Yes, that Savior…
 
A Savior bestowing extravagant grace for the flashy, exciting years of life and for the ordinary, trudging, just sometimes plain hard and confusing yet somehow also sweet years of life. And that has been year 31 for me. Thank you, Jesus, that you are my Rock and a trustworthy foundation in every kind of year.
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