Today is my 22nd birthday!
I’ve been waiting seven years for this day, ever since my Queen Taylor Swift released a song that, in my mind, beautifully romanticizes and mystifies this particular chapter of your 20’s. What a dream it is to finally be here. For the longest time I couldn’t ever picture today, probably because I’m living it while in Kigali, Rwanda and who the heck could’ve guessed my life would turn out this way?
With such an occasion, I thought I would share a list of 22 things I have learned before turning 22. I’m praising and thanking the Lord today for another year of life. Thank you so much to all who have already made today so special!
1. To choose joy.
This is an expression or idea I have heard quite often, but this past year was the first time I truly grasped and lived it out. Joy *is* a choice, and as an Enneagram type 4, a realist, a pessimist, and someone who struggles with mental health, it really is a switch in my brain I have to actively flip on. Waking up everyday and deciding that regardless of my circumstances, present feelings, or state of the world, I’m going to be choose to be happy has completely revolutionized my life and my faith. Thank you, Jesus.
2. How to use a squatty potty!
You ain’t a world racer until… (If you don’t know what this is, google it I’ll spare you the details.)
3. Things don’t make me happy. People and experiences do.
This is something we’ve all heard our entire lives: “money can’t buy you happiness.” Though most of us would never admit it, our American culture is essentially built upon the opposite. “Money can’t buy you happiness, but it’ll get you the American dream and that’s close enough.” Being away from home and on the mission field for 10 months, I’ve found that I don’t miss my clothes, car, hair products and makeup, even books, movies, or TV shows nearly as much as I just miss my people. I’ve been living out of a backpack for the better part of 21, and I know this experience will make me a minimalist for life.
4. To let go of my people-pleasing tendencies.
I learned how to say no this year, and to let go of my borderline obsession with what others think of me. There’s a fine line between being helpful, kind, and generous for the sake of it, and being helpful, kind, and generous in order to win the approval of others. My opinion of myself, and the opinions of those I love and care about are really the only ones that matter.
5. To find my voice as a leader.
It isn’t the loudest one in the room, and it used to come from a place of deep, deep insecurity. I found confidence this year in the positions the Lord has called me to. I’ve learned to lead from a place of grace, because I’ve been shown so very much in my life, in this year, even. I’m still growing in patience, but hey, what else is 23 for?
6. To love and accept my entire self…not just the filtered version on my Instagram.
This is a big one. How do you learn to accept your flaws and deepest insecurities, even the ones you’ve spent your whole life trying to hide? One, by exposing yourself. By acknowledging them, by being so very vulnerable and airing them out like dirty laundry for the whole world to see. Then looking at the people who are still standing by you, supporting you like they had every step of the way before. I’ve found the more I’ve learned to love and accept myself, the more I’ve grown to love and appreciate the communities, family, and friends the Lord has placed in my life. These are my people.
7. There’s so much more to me than my jean size!
I’ve been fairly transparent in the past when it comes to my insecurities and struggles with my weight. I look back at the 40 lb heavier version of myself, and I wish I could send her this post. I wish I could pray over her and help her find her identity firmly placed in Jesus Christ. I wish I could tell her my lifestyle is now as I would describe “works out and eats better, but still never refuses ice cream.” She would be so proud.
8. What makes me happy. It’s so much simpler than I ever thought.
I used to think happiness was a destination I would one day reach when I met the right person, when I had an exact blueprint for my life, when I had the clothes, and the career, and the house, and lived next door to my best friend, Taylor Swift. Instead, I’ve found happiness in adventure. In going somewhere I’ve never been before. In a really, really great worship song. In catching up with friends. In making a little girl or boy smile. In screaming my favorite Disney songs at the top of my lungs. In sitting with the Lord, thinking about and thanking Him for all that He has done in my life. In dreaming of all that is yet to come.
9. To prioritize my daily time with the Lord.
I was that person who was always inconsistent in my “quiet times” with God, though I always knew and was told setting time aside daily to sit with Him and read His word is just about the easiest and quickest way to begin to see fruit in your life. In coming on the Race, I knew this was no longer negotiable, so I pushed myself to wake up every morning, and before anything else, sit down and read my bible. I started the She Reads Truth bible-in-a-year plan at the beginning of the Race and am about to finish. Though I wasn’t always perfectly consistent in the first few months, I can now attest the theory that it takes roughly 21 days to build a habit, is true in my case. I cannot go about my day without feeling off or like something’s wrong if I haven’t had my time with God in the morning. I crave it, I look forward to it, and I’m eager to go back home finally solid in this routine.
10. How to love others better.
Two words: the enneagram.
11. Broken is okay. Stuck isn’t.
If you’ve read literally any of my posts this year, you know that I walked in a whole lot of unexpected brokenness this year. It terrified me, because broken for me in the past was synonymous with stuck. It was a place I couldn’t so easily bounce back from. God walked me into a season of brokenness at the end of month three in December, and I sat in it for more than a few months. But, I wasn’t stuck. Though I couldn’t always see it, everyday I was moving one step closer to the light at the end of the tunnel. I’ve learned through this that asking for help is okay. Admitting to yourself and to trusted friends or supportive people in your life is more than okay. Whatever it takes to keep moving forward, do it. But don’t grow stagnant and accept that whatever difficult situation life has thrown your way, is for life. To everything there is a season, and you don’t have to go through any of them alone. Broken is okay, stuck isn’t.
12. Community is everything.
On that note…wow, community. I remember somewhere in the first few months of the Race, I told a friend at home I was really struggling and that the community aspect of the Race would most likely be my biggest point of growth by the end of it all. I came into the Race 98% introverted, and I believe that’s one of few things about me that hasn’t changed at all. But it also made literally. Never. Being. Alone. so very difficult to grow used to. I would daydream about going into rooms alone and shutting the door to just be by myself for 5 seconds. I would hide behind buildings, in stairwells, or go as far away from my teammates as Race rules would allow late at night and just cry and process my emotions alone. In the beginning, I was so focused on the bending and the breaking happening in me as I learned how to navigate the Race as an extreme introvert who couldn’t get her introvert time, that I missed all the wonderful, life-giving aspects of community. My community this year has looked like kitchen dance parties to our favorite songs, vulnerability nights where we share our deepest struggles and what God is doing in our lives, endless card games, team movie nights, worship times where every hand is raised in the air and every knee on the ground in surrender to the Father, dinners full of more laughter than conversation, honest feedback exchanged, bible studies, and real, raw, intentional corporate prayer for each other, for the communities we’re serving, and for the people we’re becoming. I’ve been reading the book of Acts for the last several weeks and I can’t help but highlight endless passages describing the early church that remind me so much of my dear teams and my dear P Squad.
13. I actually love adventure.
From the girl who lived in constant states of anxiety and rarely ever did anything outside of her comfort zone…well, to the girl who has five weeks left on the freakin World Race.
14. I don’t have to smile when someone says something that makes me uncomfortable or that I don’t agree with.
Our culture insists on raising polite young ladies over headstrong women who refuse to be ignored or steamrolled over. I’ve learned I have a voice, not just on the internet, and I don’t have to be that person who will never speak up when something is said that I don’t agree with. I can still do it in a polite and loving way, because yes I am a polite young lady. But I’ve learned those words do not have to also mean pushover.
15. I would rather be someone who makes a lot of mistakes than someone who never has anything to learn from.
16. To be kind to myself.
In order to function like a healthy human being, to love and serve others better like I’ve been called to, I’ve learned I have to be real and take care of myself first. I need my time with the Lord everyday, I need to be an introvert and an internal processor, I need a true rest day at least once a week, and sometimes I just need a really great playlist and I’m good to go. For so long I viewed what’s actually being self-aware as being selfish. I now know I have to be kind to myself in order to be more kind to others.
17. The power of speaking life.
I never quite grasped the heart behind this before this year. It’s so important to speak life over yourself, meaning cutting out verbalizing insecurities or self-deprecating humor. And it’s even more important to speak life over others. Gossip, unkind words, negative attitudes…these are literally speaking death. We have a God-given power to speak things into existence, so why choose to speak death over others or ourselves when we’re called to love and uplift?
18. Wounds don’t just heal overnight, and freedom isn’t a one-and-done.
This goes back to having grace and patience for myself. In recent years, I’ve won the mental health battle. But what I’ve learned since then, is that I will still have bad days. I still have times when it feels like backsliding but I know it’s actually just a time I need to claim victory once again.
19. If it’s coming from a place of anger, it isn’t worth it.
There’s just not enough life to live on this earth, and living in anger is a massive waste of it.
20. Feelings and emotional depth are not things to be ashamed of!
I used to think I was overly dramatic or too intense for others. It turns out I just have a lot of feelings. But there is so much beauty in recognizing and giving thanks that the Lord crafted me this way. I am someone who wears my heart on my sleeve, and I certainly have my flaws, but it’s also made relationships with the Lord and others in my life that much more meaningful.
21. How to die to self.
This year I learned that I do not want to become that person who is so focused on myself. I’ve learned what being a true servant is, and most of the time it means you won’t receive a thank you or you won’t necessarily get to see the fruits of your labor. Faith, generosity, and kindness mean doing it anyway.
22. Who I still want to become.
I don’t have an exact blueprint for the rest of my life, but I do have a general mapping. I’ve learned to be continually praying for seasons of my life that have yet to come. To be praying that I continue learning as many lessons as I did at 21, at 31, 45, 58, and so on. I never want to become complacent in stagnation. Growth is hard work, but I’ve yet to ever be let down at the end of it.
