30

This morning I slept until 8:45. Avery left yesterday to spend a couple of days with Grammy and Poppa, so I had no 6:45 am wake-up call. As a sidenote, Avery’s wake-up call is very much that. More of a wake-up demand, actually. She literally yells from the other side of the house “Moooooooooooooooom…is it morning time yet? Mooooooooooooom…wake up and come get me” until I do.

With that obstacle to uninterrupted sleep, I still did not expect to stay asleep this late, but by some miracle, neither my bladder nor Posh’s woke me up early. So with no child to call me out of bed and begin requesting a breakfast buffet the moment her toes hit the floor, what am I to do on this rare peaceful morning?

Not sure how it happened, but here I am. It’s been months and people often ask me (not true, no one really asks anymore) why I stopped blogging. I never really knew why but I guess it’s just that I don’t make time for it. So since I’m sitting here, sipping coffee and relishing my unscheduled time, I will update anyone in the world who cares on what’s been going on with me.

First and foremost, I am just under 48 hours away from turning THIRTY. And guess what? I’m pretty pumped. Lucky for me, most of my friends, and my husband, are older than me, so I have the luxury of still feeling pretty young, relatively speaking (sorry guys, but its true!). I also live a very “old” life, so I’m welcoming thirty. Besides that, I met a woman last week who, when I told her I was about to celebrate a milestone birthday, was insistent that I was turning 21, and did not believe me when I told her the truth. I don’t know where this woman came from, but I love her.

I guess big milestone birthdays make you stand back and take a look at your life. When I do I like to look at it from the perspective of my younger self…say 16 year old Libby. My teenage self would obviously hope  and expect that I’d have found that special someone by now. Check! 8 years with my best friend, who still makes me laugh more than anyone else, and loves me despite AAAAAAAAALLLLLL my imperfections. Yup I did ok in that department.

Sweet sixteen Libby was surprisingly goal oriented, so I’m thinking she’d have expected that by now I’d be the next Katie Couric, or on the road thereto. Well that plan was revised early on, but in the career category I really couldn’t ask for more right now. Since my change in fields a few years ago, it’s been a rough road, but changes over the last year have put me in a position where I several times a day find myself thinking “I love my job.” I think that in itself is a success, to love what you do and feel that you’re doing a good job of it. So I think I earned a checkmark there.

My 16 year old self, in all her earthly wisdom, probably did not think much about kids, but I’m putting a huge checkmark in that category! Although her wake-up calls keep getting earlier, there is no sweeter face to wake up to every morning and put to sleep every night. There is nothing in this world that keeps me in check like the co-responsibility of teaching and training this sweet little life. My goodness I love that little girl.

I think one of the last things people in general want to have under their belt when they hit a milestone is some sense of purpose, or the feeling of being part of something bigger than they are. This past year has made me examine the meaning beneath this in a whole new way. When we were part of Northway Church it was so easy to put a checkmark in that category. Loving and investing in others was literally on my calendar every week. Now, my beliefs are the same, my desire to serve God by serving others is the same. The challenge is figuring out what exactly that looks like on a daily basis.

Yes, we have found a phenomenal church, and I’m thrilled to finally be getting involved in music there. But after 9 solid months of not being involved in any official volunteering capacity, I have been challenged like never before to live out my purpose on this earth in a completely non-organized fashion. And it has been so, so hard. Why? Because I have come to the conclusion that God’s purpose for my life is to break me down and teach me lessons that only He and I can judge if I’m learning. And they’re not the easy ones. Rather, I’m recognizing that I need to do the following: Be humble. Be unselfish. Love everyone around me, from the angry receptionist I encounter at work, to the almost 3 year old who wants to play checkers with me while I’m making dinner…and love them more than myself. The problem with these is I can’t put them on my schedule…they come at me without warning, often at the most inconvenient times, and my challenge and purpose is to respond the right way in that moment.

It’s so much harder to put a checkmark in this category, but recognizing where my purpose lies and what I’m supposed to be doing is probably half the battle…or at least a third! I recently heard Pastor Doug put this in such great perspective for me. He said that living life in Christ is not about attaining to a standard, or for me, passing all of these little tests that come at me every day. Rather, it’s recognizing the standard and that I can’t be expected to measure up perfectly, so I fall back on Him. Literally, I fall back and rest in Him, and I stay standing because I have a greater support system. Doug literally had someone up there catching his fall. He fell back in exhaustion, and almost to his surprise, someone caught him and held him up.

So in the purpose category, that image is in my head…me falling back and resting in Him. I would say that’s a very accurate image of how I find myself as I approach this milestone birthday. Perfect? Not even close. Striving? Yes. Failing? Mostly. But thank God I have a solid understanding of where I stand, and Who I fall on. And among the many, many, many things I’m grateful for, that is the foremost.

So when people ask me how I feel about this big birthday, I think they expect me to say something along the lines of “29 forever.” But truthfully, I can’t help but smile. Bring it on 30. Life is good…very good!

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