The Journey to 28

This year has been full of journeys, but not all of them were expected. You know it has been a strange year when you get to travel the globe but the most significant things that you will remember are the things that happened at home. That is what I will remember of my 27th year of life.

It really feels as if two years have passed, and those two years were the antithesis of one another. The first half of the year was a marathon of travel: a week in Las Vegas, a few weeks in Costa Rica, and a few weeks in Poland. I loved every minute of it. Those experiences changed the way I viewed the world. But, eventually I had to come home, and things got ugly. Nothing could have prepared me for the journey of Fall 2008, but I would dare say it was the most significant of the year and perhaps my life.

At this point, I had been feeling discontent with my present life for quite a while, and I had been praying that something, anything in my life would change. That was a indeed a dangerous prayer... Not long after returning from Poland, I found out that I might be losing my job. In late August, I injured my PCL (knee), keeping me out of sports and in rehab to this day. My course load at school was my most difficult yet. All of this was more than I had bargained for when I asked for my life to change, but then things got personal...

Have you ever known that there were things in your life that needed to be addressed, but the thought of it made you cringe? It was in the midst of all these trials that God made it abundantly clear that it was time to take care of some of the junk in my life. The task seemed simple enough at first, but it got messy quickly. It was like cleaning up a spill on couch. I was able to wipe away the pooling liquid on the surface with relative ease, but that just revealed the true nature of the problem. The liquid had sunken deep into the cushion. There was no way to know how deep the stain went, nor were there any quick fixes. That's when I realized how broken I really was. Never before had I felt so inadequate or unlovable.

It was exactly where I needed to be.

About this time, God began to put some men in my life who weren't afraid of being real with me. They weren't some super-Christians or anything like that. They were broken just like me. In sharing our struggles together I feel like God has given me a picture of what the church should look like. It's not a bunch of people without faults or problems. We are all deeply flawed, but deeply loved by God. These men know the ugliest parts of me...yet, they still love and accept me, and they challenge me to take my burdens to the cross of Christ. Never before have I experienced God's love and grace so powerfully.

Sometimes I think God brings us to the point of deepest need so that we can truly understand His love for us and truly seek Him with our lives. I am still on that journey, but I have a new hope for 28 and beyond. This valley of trouble will become a door of hope, and these bones which are crushed will soon rejoice.