Soon I'll be turning 30 years old. It sounds old and in some ways, I don't feel old. In other ways, I very much do. I've been trying to come up with a way to describe the last decade of my life, something short and sweet and meaningful. But I can't. So much happens in your 20s, too much for a short paragraph.

Much of my 20's was spent barrelling through life, doing as much as I could as quick as I could. I finished undergrad and grad school in a combined 4.5 years. I had life saving surgery that gave me vitality, for a year and a half. I also got stuck with Garrett, my stoma. As my fellow ostomates say, I got no colon but I'm still rollin'. I became ill again, this time with a neuro-muscular disease that has left me permanently disabled.

I moved to a new city to help start a new ministry. I took a job in the deaf-blind community. I fundraised a salary. I took a different job, and a different one after that. I counseled people. I started programs in the city. I mentored young women and girls. I became a volunteer coach. Then I became a Varsity coach, and then another varsity coach, and before I knew it, I was coaching 3 seasons out of the year for 5 teams. I traveled all over the country. I lived below the poverty line. I delivered a teenager's baby. I had partial custody of a teenager. I lived in a dozen places with a variety of different housemates. I discovered new foods I like and new food allergies. I learned to cook in my 20s.

You can't barrel through life without consequences. I experienced burn out. I experienced depression and PTSD. I had my first encounter with therapy. I looked at the state of my heart and the world and decided I wasn't going to walk away, even though I wanted to many times. I was challenged to slow down. I started gardening. I learned to play a little piano. I taught myself to ice skate. I entered and exited important and unhealthy relationships. I stepped out of one faith community and entered another. I let go of fundamentalism. I made repairs in relationships. I went sledding. The beach became my safe haven. All in all, I found that there's a difference between empty fatigue and gratifying tiredness and that my time is extremely precious.

I learned to fight and love and give in my 20s. I learned how to receive help and love. I learned how to be cared for, to receive kindness. I learned my worth. I learned my value. I learned how to speak worth and value into others. I learned that quality over quantity almost always wins, but that quantity matters too. I learned to slow down. I learned to smell flowers, that I even enjoy flowers even if they are slightly unpractical.

I learned the value of practicing playfulness and not taking myself too seriously. And I learned to have fun. I took steps in faith that were terrifying at the time that lead me down unknown paths of beauty and honesty and hope. I learned about hope in my 20s: I lost hope and found hope many times. I found help and comfort and support in some of the most unexpected places.

I encountered the meaning of posturship: the way in which I stand with others and made a decision on how I want to stand and walk and defend and love others. I was challenged to walk beside the outcast and lonely, even if it cost me. Jesus demonstrated that our social barriers are NOT fixed. So he went to the outcast when everyone said he was being ridiculous. Jesus is making me want more time with those who have been passed by and passed off.

I have realized my frailty. I realized my strength. I learned what it means to love myself. I became more secure in my body, more gracious in my errors. I learned more of what it means to love others and the importance of loving others in the same way you'd love yourself. I practiced the art of "busyness" and I learned how hard it can be to step out of it. I learned to leave margin in my life, to leave space for other-other things, people, situations that are unplanned for, because a lot in life doesn't happen according to plans. I want to be with people, so I need to create space for me to be available.

I have been learning not to lose sight of the story and that winning an immediate argument isn't the purpose. Winning often actually leads to loss. My 20's taught me that I do not need to attend every argument I am invited to. That perhaps my time is best spent not arguing but by finding a way to be a partner in a conversation with which I may disagree with another on.

I have learned the freedom of not needing to defend Jesus or save the world. I went into my 20's quietly roaring, filled with certainty on what I knew, believed, and would do. More than ever, I realize I was wrong in many ways, hurt many others, and caused some injury in ways I didn't intend. So I've also learned to be gentle with my old self and what I used to believe. In doing so, I've learned to be more gentle with others. I've learned to let go of ideaologies and theologies that decide who is valuable and who isn't. God has called me to be faithful, not to make sure everyone believes as I do.

My 20s have taught me that I deeply need affection and meaningful conversation, on a cellular level. When I am with close friends who know me and love me, on a cellular level I am energized and my physical pain is significantly lessened.

I hope in my 30s I continue to tell others what they mean to me regularly. I want to see more fully who others are and less of who they were. I hope I become better at listening first, at saying fewer things. I hope I learn to keep pursuing grace and not dogma, to be people centered not position centered. I hope I create more meaningful time with others, that I never forget the value of another person. I want to spend my life making my faith more simple, saying things that are true and lovely, and to understand that on my very worst of days when I've screwed up, Jesus still calls me Beloved.

I want to keep finding people who are different than me and try to see Jesus in them. When things get hard, I want to love harder.

I want to learn how to endure a problem and not just try to solve a problem.

I want to commit more to love and break cycles that do not promote love.

I want to partner with God to help soothe the pain of this world and I have a feeling much of that means coming alongside another and letting them know they are not alone because I commit to walking beside them.

Peace out 20s. You were good and hard and painful and beatiful, but I'm ready.