Thankful for 30

This weekend I turned... I can't even say it :) As a kid 30 seemed so old. Now that I AM 30 I realize it's far from old. I still in many ways feel like the kid at 21 who got married and started having babies. But it wouldn't be right to not look back and marvel at the grace of God on my life. Because In almost every way I'm nothing like the kid at 21 who got married and started having babies. And the fact that I am in any way different is only by the grace of God & His Spirit bringing His word alive to my soul. One thing I desired at 21, that remains the same today is, to bring glory to God in every possible way in my short life on earth. Looking back, I can see now how God can used the experiences of my Twenties to bring about change.


- I couldn't learn how to be a submissive, respectful wife to the man I loved with all my heart until I was actually married and realized how deficient I was in those areas.
- I couldn't receive the grace that came with motherhood (sleepless nights, tantrums, loving someone so much you thought your heart would explode) until being a mother.
- I couldn't learn the joy and thrill of church planting until planting a church with a group of dear friends.
- I could never have learned the faithfulness of God in trials until I watched the church explode and those dear friends be no more.
- I couldn't learn the empty promises of this world until I lived long enough to see that nothing of this world truly satisfies. It's one thing to know that's true as a young women - it's another to actually see and experience things of this world fall away and come up empty in my soul. This makes my heart proclaim- Only HE satisfies, only His word brings life to my soul.

Add in new friends, a new church to love, more children and God renewing my faith and desire to plant a church again and I'm entering my thirties. If given the chance, there would be things I would not write into these past ten years. But looking back and tasting and seeing the goodness of God, I would not change a thing.

I expect and know that God will continue his faithfulness till my days on earth come to an end. I expect to grow in my walk with the Lord in new ways this next decade as He continues to bring about sanctification in my life. I expect God to use each and every circumstance, life changes, and trials to point me back to the Savior! I am now much closer to heaven at 30 then I was at 20.

For all of these reasons and more, I am a thankful and blessed 30 year old woman.

Are you not at this hour a monument of God's faithfulness? Where would you have been, had not the magnet of His grace kept you, and drawn your fugitive affections towards Himself? From how many temptations has He rescued you- laying hold of you on the precipice, when about to plunge headlong down; employing, sometimes constraining grace, at other times, restraining grace- making this your brief history– "Kept by the power of God," and overruling all- ALL for His own glory, and your own good? John MacDuff, Night Watches