I just realized today that it has been a month since I posted anything on the blog! Yikes! I thought it was only a couple weeks. The time has been taken up with traveling, interviewing and reflecting on my life. Thus, it seems fitting to write today about a birthday I had two days ago. Especially as you get older birthdays are a good time for a gut and heart check on where you are. Have I accomplished what I hoped for until now in my life? What does the next few years and seasons look like for me? Where am I going? Am I giving God glory with my life? All those questions have been, and were particularly on my mind and heart as I celebrated a special birthday...
... on Monday I turned 29 and my birthday for as many years has been November 29th. When I realized this one of friends said: "It's your golden birthday!" I don't think I had ever heard that expression before, but perhaps that is because I haven't experienced it until now. I imagine it is much less weighty if your birthday was on the 3rd of the month, like my sister's, but when it happens later it is a reminder of how "old" you are getting. Age is a relative thing, I am certainly not old in comparison with many, but it is significant when you leave a decade of your life as I am about to do. When I think back over the last 10 years so many significant milestones have happened in my life. Here are just a few:
1. I graduated from college with my BA degree.
2. I moved across the country and lived in Colorado for 5+ years.
3. I graduated from seminary with a Master of Divinity degree
4. I moved again, to California.
5. I have been to so many places in US I never thought I would go when I was younger: Mississippi, Louisiana and New Orleans, Alabama, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Mexico, Latvia, London, Arizone and New Mexico, to name a few...
6. I have made some of my best friends in the world...
7. I have worked as a long term substitute teacher, and a youth pastor...
8. I first purchased a macintosh computer.
9. I left my teenage years.
These are just a few of the things that have happened in the last ten years of my life. When I look back on those things I feel grateful. I have many friends who have gotten married and are starting families by now. If you asked me ten years ago if that is something I would have thought would happen to me I would have said yes. And to be sure, those are hopes and dreams of mine for the next ten years of my life. But I have had the opportunity to do many things, such as moving, getting degrees and traveling, that my friends didn't have. I am very thankful for what the Lord has given to me.
On Monday, I had one of the best birthdays I've ever had. In the morning, before I left I had breakfast with two of my dearest friends in the world, Josh and Hannah. I left Los Angeles and drove through some of the most beautiful beachfront I have ever seen in the US along the Pacific Coast Highway. I stopped in Malibu, CA and bottled up a piece of the Pacific Ocean to remind me of my time there. I continued the drive up through Santa Barabara and San Luis Obispo until I came to San Jose. I spent most of the day driving... but that was just find with me. It was time to reflect, dream and decide where I was going to go for the next season of my life. In the evening, back in San Jose, I had dinner with my other dearest friends in the world: Jason, Laura, Chris, Cassie, and my newfound friend KP. My birthday was simple... two meals and a drive... but it was incredibly life giving to me. I suppose as you get a little you appreciate the little things.
As I looked out at the Pacific Ocean during my stop in Malibu I realized one very defining reality for the next season of my life: I'm an adult. I entered my twenties as a college kid with no cares and the hardest thing I had to do was set my alarm. Now I have bills to pay and more time behind me. I'll be 30 next year... but one thing I resolved on the shores of the Pacific is that I will never stop living life with joy, laughter, awe-inspired passion, and a love of people. No matter what happens. Life will get hard and I will never be a kid again... but I hope to live with youthful passion until the day the Lord calls me home--whether that is tomorrow or when I am 100-- for the Glory of God and the Sake of Gospel.
PS--- I have like five posts I had in my head that I haven't written... stay tuned for "City of Angels" tomorrow!
