January 14, 2023 (my thirty-first birthday)
A letter to my 10-year younger self:
Happy 21st birthday. You’re drinking a Peach Bellini with friends at Dublin Square, the same restaurant you and Lea went to during freshman year—when you hid in the bushes after the MSU homecoming game, trying to catch a glimpse of Gerard Butler. You were so stealthy.
Earlier in January, you welcomed the New Year in Indianapolis, at a conference. It was a conference full of Christians. You felt awkward and out of place. But it was in that place, on that night, that you chose to believe in Jesus—what he said, how he lived, who he was.
Your heart was beautiful. It was beautiful like flowers, like the way they shoot anew from spring-frosted ground in May. Their gentle, fragile shoots, and the way their heads tilt toward the sun. They are hopeful, and hopelessly naive to all the death that will come in future seasons.
You’re blowing out candles and probably making a wish for love—like you do every year—except 10 years ago, you didn’t quite realize that you already had it. You’re still unsure of yourself, still new to the reality of God’s all-encompassing love. You haven’t figured out what it means for your life.
In many ways, you’re still learning this, a decade later.
In the years to come, you will date boys, cross oceans, find friends, and lose parts of yourself you used to take for granted. You will buy a house (this one still surprises you), adopt a cat (you’ll love her more than you expected), earn a master’s degree, and learn how to appreciate the little things.
Ten years later, at 31, you’ll be proud of who you are and how you got there. They’ll sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU at the top of their lungs, and you’ll stand in the candlelight and revel in your moment. You’ll let their eyes and their song and their attention sit on you, and soak you through. You’ll finally believe that you’re worthy of it. It’s been a long road coming to get to this point, and only God could do it.
Because the pain of life has taught you wisdom.
But the love of God has made you free.
#thisis31 🤍