A quarter century of living

My birthday always makes me very reflective. So last night around midnight, I had the sudden urge to look through some old journals. I enjoyed reading entries that show the person I used to be and how that person has shaped me into who I am presently. Reading through different things I wrote, I had varied emotions. In some ways, I'm so glad I've matured in certain aspects of life and find myself wiser in these areas than I was during college. However, I also realized that in the day to day grind of working life, I have lost some of the idealistic passions I used to have several years ago, when life seemed less complicated as a college student.

Going forward into my second quarter century, I have hope that I will come closer to finding the balance between the reality of life and achieving my dreams. Five years ago, my lack of life experience led me to compartmentalize my dreams into different areas. For example, I had my dream job (working in the music industry or as an event planner) and my dream relationship (marrying David). I soon came to realize during my senior year of college that pursuing my dream job wouldn't mesh with pursuing my dream of marrying David (for various logistical reasons) and this is where I began to discover a more holistic approach in how to be fulfilled in life instead of thinking the key to fulfillment was simply pursuing all my dreams in all the different areas of my life. But this was just the beginning of a long discovery process.

Then last fall, I read The Irresistible Revolution and another piece of my life puzzle fell into place. I had the great ephiphany that I was created simply to love. To love God and to love people. It was at this point I realized that it didn't matter what career goals I pursued, since I could love God and love people in whatever job I had. This was a liberating discovery that freed me from my pride and allowed me to fully embrace the position God gave me working on the UCD campus.

A month later, I was given the opportunity to work as a student adviser, a position that is in high demand on campus. Now I look back and see that God had been priming me for the last several years to get to this point in learning how to be content and not worry about status or what job title I had before presenting me with the student adviser position. I love God's irony sometimes.

I am so thankful for my current job in student advising and am even looking into two possible grad programs that would help me to pursue this career path even further. However, I know now that it doesn't matter whether or not I have a grad degree. If going to grad school doesn't work out, that just means there's another road God wants me to take. He's led me this far, so I figure I'll keep on driving, with my stereo on full blast, and see where my life road signs take me. Wherever I end up though, I'll still have what I need for any life journey: Jesus, my husband, my family, and my friends. And hopefully those four things will always my top priority in life, no matter what birthday I'm celebrating.

Just enjoy the show

I dare you to not smile while watching this:

an obvious epiphany

I've been pondering a lot of things lately. Last week I was feeling very melancholy, like there was a grey cloud over my head just floating around. Work was unexpectedly stressful. And, actually, life in general was a little overwhelming. Then there was all the coverage of the financial crisis, which got me to worrying about my parents and their financial security. Then on top of that, I started thinking about all the people I knew experiencing some kind of pain---physical, mental, or emotional. Basically, last week was one large ice cream sundae of worry and fear and stress.

But luckily, this sundae melted. I had a realization last Friday and it was quite simple really. Embarrassingly simple. I realized that DUH, God never promises us that life will be easy. However, I have grown so accustomed to life being easy that when life becomes a little tumultuous I freak out. But there is the choice we all have, to dwell in the fear or to move forward knowing that our hope in God will guide us through the fear. The only promising option is to choose the latter, and so now this week I have a renewed sense of optimism. Not because everything suddenly got better---uncertainty and stress and all that fun stuff is still there. But as Corrie ten Boom said, once you "trust an unknown future to a known God", everything seems much easier to handle.