The Beauty Of Turning Thirty

I turned thirty last week. People act like it's some sort of scary milestone that everyone is supposed to dread, but I figure I've got a few more years before I need to bust out the Depends. Besides, I think I reached my peak at around 25, so it has all been going downhill anyway. No biggie.

A few years ago my youngest sister – in her teens – commented on the ugliness of my slip-on backless shoes.

I shrugged. “They're comfortable,” I said.

She eyed me for a moment.

“Thirty's comin',” she said.

I just laughed in hearty agreement. Thirty was nothing to fear. It was just another tickmark on the wall, another calendar day gone by, and now that it's arrived, I feel exactly the same way. Plus I'm totally okay with sometimes wearing ugly, comfortable shoes and not giving a flip what anyone else thinks.

But I suppose I sometimes feel like those shoes. The hardest part about getting older, I think, is that we start to believe our external beauty is fading – at least, we women do. (Why do men get better looking as they get older? Seriously, what is up with that? So not fair...)

We don't like to admit it, but beauty is so important to us girls. Especially us mamas, because we tend to push ourselves to the side while we care for others' needs. We may shift our focus and priorities as we get older, but that doesn't mean we don't still long for others to see beauty in us.

I have never felt 'beautiful' by the world's standards, so I can't really say I feel like I'm losing something in this new decade. Instead I'm finally beginning to grasp what beauty truly is. It has nothing to do with the lies that we tell ourselves for thirty years, and many times our whole lives. (You know, that list you keep of what you need to change about yourself in order to be attractive.)

If beauty was meant to be found in perfection, then there would be none.

No, beauty has never had a standard. It has never been about achieving some vague idea of 'perfect'. It's in what we create out of the imperfection.

It's in our silliness, in laughing at ourselves, in our loving each other despite our faults. It's in the worn hands that have labored sacrificially, and in the little eyes that reflect a love I don't deserve. It's in the hope that springs from our brokenness; it's in every precious moment we take a breath.

With age comes wisdom (I have the strands of gray to prove it), and perhaps that is why I see more beauty around me than ever before. I know the truth about it. 

I know that I am completely and utterly imperfect, and I know that I'm okay with that.

These thirty years have molded me each and every step of the way. They have not always been kind, but they have been full, they have been blessed, and I am a richer woman than I ever could have imagined I would be.

I know how much life can be lived in thirty years, how much beauty can be found. And to that I say, bring on the next thirty.

On Losing Heart And Finding It Again

I know all of you are oblivious to deeply concerned about my minimal online presence lately, and I wish I could tell you that it's because I've been doing all this amazing intentional living where I'm having loads of fun playing with the kids, creating Pinterest-worthy baking masterpieces, reading books, writing a novel and such, but the truth is I've been in a state of MOM...Mental Overload Mode.

Although I can absolutely say that we have been enjoying the heck out of being back home and that there has been a lot of that stuff going on – like kite flying, first-time fishing (for Hannah), campfires, and family – there is also an awful lot of fatigue and stress that comes along with a big move, so there has been some of that as well.

For starters, our former house needs to get rented out ASAP and terrible pestilences need to quit plaguing our household...but I try to remind myself daily that these are mere inconveniences in the scheme of things, especially when I take into consideration all the things in our life right now that are so good.

Sure, there's no Chipotle, and milk costs an arm and a leg. And yes, we're back in the south and I've already had to try to break Hannah of adding extra syllables to her words ("Mama, can I have a SNA-YICK?"). But nothing can ever take away from what I've gained.

On our first night here I slept better than I have in months, maybe even years. I wondered why... Is this neighborhood quieter? Is it because the dog wasn't in our room? Is it because the kids' room is further away, and I can't hear every tiny moan and sigh anymore?

Perhaps it's some of that, or maybe even all of it, but I also believe that being here has ignited a spark of contentment that had burned out at some point a while back. I think I was too busy and distracted to notice, but being 1300 miles away from where your heart is does take its toll.

For Valentine's Day Hannah's preschool class at church made paper heart cut-outs, and she carried hers around proudly...until she laid it down somewhere and couldn't find it. She was quite sad about it, for a while, but eventually she accepted its absence, as we so often do when we lose our hearts. There's always enough to keep us distracted.

Then after church one evening, she ran up to me with the long-lost treasure in her hand.

“Mama! I found my heart!”

What joy it brings us to find it again. I know so completely how it feels. Our heart gets lost in the shuffle along the way, many times, and we use our distractions to make us forget. But when we stumble across it again, we're reminded of why we missed it so much in the first place. We're reminded of why taking care of it matters so much.

Of course, afterwards we went to Kroger where she promptly lost her little paper heart again, and I fear this time it shall never be found. Good thing this is just a metaphor and pretzels are a handy distraction.

But I'm just thankful to feel it again – that sense of wholeness, of being complete. The knowing that my heart is right where it belongs and that I have the tools to find it again if ever it becomes lost.

There are plenty of other precious things that can get lost when I lose sight of my heart...my patience, my temper, my joy...and that's why I've got to hold on tight. I've got to give my heart the nourishment it needs...love, faith, hope. It's the well from which all that purposeful, intentional living that I desire can spring forth.

I see a lot of 'losing heart' going on these days, and all I can say is, maybe we're meant to find it in each other. I wish we always had the courage to share ourselves in those real, raw, uninhibited moments that are so rare, when we connect with another human being so deeply that we say, “There! There is my heart. I've found it because it's the same as yours.”

We need more of that. We need more of the hope that we find in each other. Perhaps the greatest lesson we will ever learn is how to share our little paper hearts.

Just A Little Joy

“The battle in your life is against your joy.” – John Eldredge, Walking with God

 

 

Look for it. Seek it out. Remind yourself, every single day, in those rare moments when your world is filled with golden light and all of your senses drink in its warmth, that the joy is out there, and it is yours for the taking. 

Remember that you will win that battle.

What Lies Beyond The Rain

Hands aching from my tight grip on the steering wheel, I eased up on the gas and strained to see the U-Haul I was following through the darkness and pouring rain. Several times, over the sound of Abram’s wailing, I heard my tires skid, and my hands gripped even harder. Water sloshed, lightning flashed, and I rummaged around, trying to find anything I could that might entertain the little guy for a few minutes and make the crying stop.

We’d brought along walkie talkies to communicate, but mine had died and my cell phone was beeping, as I’d not been able to find my charger at the hotel the night before. Abram’s cries were growing louder, so I dug my checkbook out of my purse and tossed it in the back seat, desperate for anything that could possibly buy me a few minutes of peace. The poor thing had had it with this journey, and so had I.

We were less than a hundred miles away from our destination, on this drive that we’d made so many times before, but the slower pace of the U-Haul coupled with the terrible weather had made this trip feel so much longer and more frustrating than ever before. And for some reason, I was scared.

I guess it was the limited communication and the thought of something happening to my precious cargo in the car seats behind me, but the last leg of this trip felt so ominous. It felt as though maybe we weren’t meant to be here. Why did it have to be so difficult? Why the bad weather? Isn’t this where we’re supposed to be going?

I prayed, out loud, voice shaking: “God, please just get us there. Help us to make it.”

Looking back, I realize how silly it seems now. It was just a storm, but my first reaction when things got tough was, “Why is this happening?” I guess I always reach for that falsity in the back of my mind – the idea that if we are doing what’s ‘right’, then life should be easy.

Silly me. Since when is life ever easy?

I know with all of my soul that we are right where we’re meant to be, especially when I see my kids loving this new place, leaping into piles of leaves and finding new treasures in the backyard. They have taken to these changes as though they’re not even changes at all, as though it’s the same life we’ve always lived.

And once again, they are teaching me.

They go with it. They go with life and all of its twists and turns, and they do it fearlessly. They trust their caretaker to meet their needs. They don’t question the changes. They don’t ask ‘why’ when there are obstacles.

Both kids have been battling some sort of awful infection for several days now, and when Abram awoke in the middle of the night with a 104 degree fever, I was scared. When Hannah’s eyes turned red and gunky and continued to get worse, I was scared.

But we got through it. And now that they’re on the mend, I realize that it was just a storm. We hit patches of bad weather all the time, and sure, they’re a little bit scary – and some are longer and scarier than others – but we always emerge on the other side, birds chirping and sunlight peeking through the clouds.

In the midst of these little rainstorms, our sunlight has been our love of being home. I can already see how this move, this tiny little adjustment we’ve made, is fine-tuning the course of our lives. How it has brought us so much more to cherish and love.

No doubt there are storms ahead, but all I can see is the joy that lies just beyond the clouds. If only I always had the eyes to see it…