Current Plans: Maybe some birthday mac and cheese?
Current Excitement: It's my birthday! I have cute nephews! My parents are visiting in a little over a week! I am blessed to be alive!
My friends!
This is my very firstest blog post as a 20-year-old woman! I can hardly believe it. I feel so blessed to be alive, and to know the people I know. I've really met some amazing people in the past 20 years, not to mention God has given me the most amazing family I could ask for.
School's been going really well. I've got a nice rhythm and my days are filled with wonderful music, prayer, learning, and people. I'm having so much fun this year. It helps that I've got beautiful roommates to keep me from being a hermit, and that everything I do throughout the day is just so dang enjoyable. Some things I've enjoyed so far this year are:
1. Learning, and I mean really learning how to play piano & about music theory. I feel like I've already learned so much in such a short time. It's so freeing to sit down at an instrument and know SOMETHING about it.
2. My roomies. They are the goofiest, most loving buncha girls. I love the random shenanigans we get up to. As well as the heart-to -hearts and encouragement (even when it happens on the bathroom floor).
3. My worship team(s) are uhmazing. We have so much fun and also manage do pray hard and navigate our way through the Word. It's so refreshing. For instance, today our partner team was leading an intercession set and they sang a few choruses in Spanish, and we were all being silly but we ended the set earnestly asking the Lord for His joy. OMNOM, right?
4. One time, Annalise and I went with some friends to the city market and we bought the most beautiful set of green chairs. Check us out:
5. That same day a friend and I explored a glorious old cemetery in a shady part of KC. There was a huge Jewish quarter and a lot of famous KC residents were buried there.
There have been many other adventures, shared meals, exceptional hugs, and giggles that weren't photographed. All in all, I am pleased.
So today's my birthday. BAM. October 12th, best day of the year. Some people think going from 19 to 20 is not a big deal, but for some reason, it really has been for me. There was something significant to me about leaving behind my teen years, and I really do mean leaving them behind. I wasn't really sure what about it was gripping my heart, but then while I was studying 1 Corinthians 13, God showed this verse to me:
"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known [by Jesus]" (1 Cor 13:11-12 NKJV).So now I'm 20, no longer a teenager. The word teenager connotes one who is impulsive, not worried about consequences, hormonal, and self-absorbed. There are a lot of good things that come along with teenagerhood, don't get me wrong- I had a good time. But something in me (the Holy Spirit perhaps) says it's time to move on and grow up. I am no longer a part of that category (in most ways), and now it's up to me to be responsible for my actions, to accept responsibility for myself, my life, and my choices. In the eyes of my culture and my country, I am an adult. I feel like the Lord is about to lead me into deeper levels of trust and intimacy with Him as well as with other people. No longer to I want to talk, think, or reason like a child. I want to talk, think, and reason as an adult well on her way to seeing things clearly. I'm excited about this brand new decade of my life which I'm sure with bring with it many changes and challenges. I'm blessed for what I've been given in the past twenty years, and I'm so thankful for the joy of the Lord which is my strength. Now is the time to put away childish things, to give the Lord the things I can't fix, and to set my face like flint before the Lord in worship and prayer. In other words, it's time to get serious. ;D
Thanks for all your love and prayers on this beautiful autumnal day!
Love from me in KC to you, wherever you may be.
Shon
