Approaching

Thirty.

Soon.

I mean really, really soon.

Many of my friends have gone before me and they've all survived. They've done it with grace. Some of them have embraced it, even.

I'm not doing so well with it. I'm about ready to pitch a big fit, in fact. Not that the alternative is a better option. It's just that, in a couple of weeks, I am going to go to bed and when I wake up I'll be thirty. I still remember when thirty was old.

I've been trying to reflect on why I feel like throwing a big tantrum. I think I've figured it out.

I always thought I'd be something really great by thirty.

I wanted to be a talented actress or a published writer or, at the very least, teaching the classics to a room of high school students. And I guess the overachiever in me feels, well, underachieved.

I'm trying.

To be excited about leaving my twenties behind.

To remember that I certainly could have, at the very least, been teaching a room of high school students by now. That I chose to be home raising my men, every moment. That I have dreams not realized but they pale in comparison to the joy of being with my boys.

And I'm learning a really big lesson. You see, I have been crucified with Christ; it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me. (Galatians 2:20)

I'm trying to learn that nothing else matters. Christ lives in me. If I live a life of extreme faith, that's enough. If I'm present and engaged in the lives of my boys, that's enough. It doesn't matter if I'm 29 or 30. If I'm being intentional and radical for God nothing else matters.

But it wouldn't hurt if you could remind me of that on September 8.