Dirty thirty. The Big 3-0. That’s what I turn today. I don’t know where these nicknames come from, but the anxiety that many people get when this age approaches didn’t hit me. In fact, I am really excited about turning 30. I have been looking forward to it for a long time. While most people mourn their 20’s because it is a period of their life they will miss, I am bidding farewell to a period of my life that I kicked in the teeth with great joy. The first two decades of my life were not spent making memories that would fill a scrapbook with cute die-cuts and pretty pictures. Most of my life was a bad after school special. Life required that I join its gang, and with it came a blood in, blood out requirement. Life jumped me in to its gang with a series of punches and kicks to my spirit that damaged me to the point of bitterness and resentment toward anyone and anything that offered a better alternative, which finally came to me in my late 20’s. When I entered into my 20’s I was ready to fight my way out of the life gang and didn’t care what collateral damage I took out in the process. I had taken the stress-fractured wounds of my past and bandaged them up, and would spend the next 10 years running on them, until they would finally turn into a full-blown break in my spirit. There was a clause in the blood out rule of the life gang is that that blood had already been shed. My price to get out of the torturous life I was living was paid. My gang membership was void, but I was not aware of it. Jesus Christ paid this price for me, and I didn’t have to spend anymore years fighting the battle I had fought for so long, alone. The lessons I learned in my 20’s were valuable, but I am happy to take those lessons with me and leave the years behind. I have learned that even when you face a near death experience, that won’t always create a miraculous change in you. You still have to work towards a change, and that often takes a considerable amount of time and effort. It is the journey that’s important. I’ve learned that Satan only has the amount of power over you that you allow him to have. I heard this statement in a sermon by Tony Evans, and it empowered me to make some much needed changes in my life. Satan does not have free reign to control your life. As Christians, we have the power of the holy spirit in our lives, however when we allow Satan a foothold, such as anxiety, or harboring a secret that controls us, he now has some power in our lives. I have learned that when I give him this power, I am not allowing the Holy Spirit as much freedom to work in my life. I’ve learned that the older I get, I cry…a lot. I see the beauty in things I didn’t see before. Extreme Homemaker Home Edition gets me every time. I expect that by the time I’m 50, I will need a tissue for a baby food commercial.
I am thankful to have made it to 30. I am thankful to have been blessed with the family I have. I am thankful that God has given me another year because 8 months ago we weren’t sure that was going to be possible. I am thankful I made it through my 20’s and that God allowed my sanity to stay intact, my family to stay together, and for my health. I am thankful that Jesus paid the price for me to get out of the Life gang, and join His Love gang.
“This is the day which the LORD has made; Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” – Psalm 118:24
