So I am now 27. 3 years from 30. Am I where I thought I would be 10 years ago? Absolutely not. Am I still happy? YES! I'm sure if you asked me 10 years ago, where I would be when I was 27, I would have said, "A MARRIED art teacher with at least 2 kids...and more on the way." Did I make a good attempt at achieving every part of that sentence? Yes...but oh the naivety of a 17 year old girl. Teaching art was fun...but not what I thought. I love art and I love kids...alot, but art in the public schools is disintegrating rapidly, and I have decided that I love the way art is therapeutic, and want to pursue it (I'm sure that musicians feel this way about music...I feel this way about both, and I have been having some exciting new ideas about putting God,art, and music together to help people heal. I've been praying that God puts a musician or two in my life to help :)
As far as being married, and having babies. There aren't that many things in my life where I feel confident enough to admit it, and I hope that people don't see me as someone who is arrogant...but I feel like I would be a really good mom. This Saturday in Kid-O-Deo, there was a little boy who I had to peel off of his mother, in order for her to get to the service. This little one did not know me at all, but just by holding him, and rocking with him, calmed his nerves, ended his sobbing, and minutes later he was playing with cars and puzzles. While holding him, I kept thinking, "This is one of the most wonderful feelings in the world." The other day at my job, I was working with the preschoolers, and this little boy didn't like that I was watching him and his friends play. He yells, "Go away!" Suddenly his friend Mike yells, "No! I LOVE her!" He turned to me and said, "I love you." I said, "I love you too!" I don't know if it is okay to tell children at my work that I love them (I really do), but when a child says that they love you...you say it BACK! I don't think that I stopped smiling for the rest of the day.
When it comes to wanting to get married, if you have known me long enough, you know that this is one of the things I want most in my life. One of the things that I have struggled so hard to trust God with. The older I get, the more I am forced to rely on Him...because the more impatient I become. I've never had a boyfriend. Everybody knows this...or you do now :) My mother claims it is because God knows that I can't handle a broken heart. Mothers are always so insightful aren't they? I've had my heart stomped on quite a bit, but only from not waiting for God's timing.
As a single person, you don't really know if these desires will ever be satisfied. It is scary sometimes to think that God doesn't have a partner for you. All of my siblings have significant others. And my parents have each other. I don't doubt their love for me, but sometimes you just start to wonder what life will be like in 10 more years, when you don't have someone who expects you home at night.
I believe that life is what you make of it. Even though I have shared some unmet desires of my heart, I don't really feel like I am sitting here...waiting for these things to happen. If I expect my satisfaction in life to come from these things, it is a slap in the face to God. It is a waste of perfectly good opportunities that God will create for me, if He chooses for me to be single. Maybe I am meant to always cuddle with other people's children. Maybe I am supposed to become a missionary and offer the skills I am learning as a counselor, to help young children who have had their hearts broken by disaster. Maybe I am supposed to be a stay-at-home mother. God will use me wherever he sees fit.
I didn't really intend to write about being single and childless today. I am just coming off of a great birthday weekend, one of the best birthdays of my life actually. God chose this weekend to show me how many people I have in my life who love me. The above photo is the group who showed up to Brunswick Zone for my birthday night. Five others came who are not pictured. I've known some of these people since birth(my siblings), kindergarten, high school, after college, and a few I have just met recently.
Here is what I did want to say in this blog. A few things that I have learned in this last year:
1. No matter what size you are, you will most likely always find something wrong with your body.
I was talking to my grad friends, and this was the consensus. Even if you aren't fat, you could be too skinny, you could have a big nose, you could be kind of hairy. We focus on imperfections. I thought that losing 100 lbs. would get rid of the insecure feelings I have about my body. Nope! Now there are new ones :) Oh well, my body and I are in love some days, and other days we avoid the mirror altogether.
2. It feels great to be where God wants you to be.
I really feel like I am right where I should be. God has blessed me so much in the last year, and I feel like he is pushing me, and stretching me, and putting new people in my life who love Him as much as I do. In the last 8 months, I have jumped headfirst into volunteering at my church. I love it. I feel so happy, calm, moved, loved, and about a dozen other words that describe what God has blessed me with in this place. I meet new people every week. I have to say that the time I enjoy the most is being part of the tech team, and hanging out with the guys/girls in the band (even though the worship pastor made reference to taking a dump, when he forgot that I was sitting right behind him. I'm pretty sure that this is going to give way to him feeling comfortable saying these things right in front of me. I accepted a long time ago that I went to the same university as these guys...and for the most part, Bethel boys are all the same. They talk about Jesus, music, pooping, and videogames in the same conversation.)
3. It's okay to be a sensitive girl.
I always cry on my birthday. I can't really explain it, maybe it is a life change that I did not initiate. Maybe I am caught between wanting a concert thrown in my honor, and not wanting too much attention...it really depends on the year I think. This year, I cried 3 times on my birthday. None of them were for bad reasons. First, I saw a sad movie. Second, the praise band at church did an amazing job playing a song that I love, and when music makes me happy, I cry...especially when it's live. And third, I was really amazed at how many friends showed up to my birthday. I think that I forget how many people care about me, mostly because most of these people I don't see that often. You forget that even though you don't see them, they still love you. I am loved :) Thanks Jesus!
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