22 feels like a big deal for me. I know it's not a far stretch from 21. It literally is one day following another. It's not very easy to track change and growth when looking at it that way. But it's always so interesting for me to watch the pages of my life turn. One after the next. After the next. After the next. After the next. The steady flow of a life in motion.
I don't know if it's just me, but I frequently think about the past, present and future and how each flows into the next. I think about the present moment and how within an hour it will be the past. Or how I am sitting in this present moment thinking about a future moment and how when I eventually reach that moment I will think back to that now past moment when I had initially thought of the now present moment. (You may have to read that paragraph a couple more times to actually get it!)
Let me give an example so that I can make my abstract brain language make more sense to you.
I remember a time, probably 7 years ago, sitting in the backseat of a car, silently pondering what my life would be like in say 5 years. I remember thinking about how real my present reality was - the feel of the leather seats I was sitting on, the bouncing and the jolting of the car, the sound of the radio playing through the speakers, the Colorado mountain scene passing me by on the windy road. All of it was so real to me then. But I remember thinking about how weird it was that in 5 years I would perhaps think back to that moment, but everything would be different. My perspective would, instead of looking forward from that moment into the unknown expanse, be looking back on that moment through a lens of 5 years of life. Stories, experiences, growth, change. I would look back through that same expanse, but I would be able to see all of the landmarks that spread across that space.
That's enough to make your mind dizzy!
I love keeping a journal. It has been one of my favorite things in the world since I was a little girl. I have journals on my bookshelf from the time I was 5 years old! Back when I was younger it was more so the romantic notion of writing "Dear diary" at each heading and fantasizing about how someday somebody would find my journals and want to turn them into a book.
Since then journaling has developed into a deep love for writing, a place for my creativity to be expressed, a place where I can be raw, messy and vulnerable, a dialogue between myself and Jesus and a safe harbor in which my heart can rest. But one of my favorite things about journaling is how I can flip back to so many moments of my life and get to experience that past, present and future phenomenon I just described.
This is the wonder of perspective. And this is why the journey of life, the flipping of each page, the writing of each story is such a marvel! It takes time. It takes patience. It takes steadiness. Sometimes it is exciting and full of momentum. Other times it is monotonous or excruciatingly painful. Sometimes it is what you expected. More often it turns out nothing like you had thought it would. No matter, without each season, without each chapter you cannot gain the perspective of a life lived out in all it's diversity.
So I stand here, on the finished side of a whopping 22 years. But it's with great humility that I look on wide-eyed towards the uncharted 22 that lies before me. I am, right now, completely ignorant in the ways of my future. But I know my Guide. And He has never led me astray, no not once.
I kind of feel like I'm jumping into a year where I am going to feel so clueless, in over my head, unqualified and overwhelmed in so many ways. And I can't wait! I said before that 22 feels big for me. I can't say exactly why. God keeps speaking to me about 22. But He doesn't actually say what exactly about 22. Just 22... So we'll see. I just can't wait to look back on this post about my thoughts in this moment of turning 22 in say another 5 years!
No comments:
Post a Comment