twenty-two

Thirty-six years, four months, and one day ago I was born into a wonder-filled and broken world. As spoken so well by friends of mine, at that moment the life-line was cut to the safest place I had known in this world, and I let out my first cry of lonliness and disappointment. I've been crawling through this world ever since looking for the entrance so as to get back into that place where every need was supplied. What a desperate life!

Thank God for a plan that involves redemption! Today I mark, with time, the twenty-second year since second birth. When I was fourteen years old I made a very child-like decision to trust that my Creator had certainly provided a doorway back to paradise. In a very limited way, like a newborn, I understood that I needed that doorway back. Thinking about being a "young adult" in my spiritual life has made me curious today to think back on what life was like when I was 22 year old in world years. I wondered if there could be any similarity between how I responded to the expereinces at 22 physical years as I do now at 22 Spiritual years. It was a very interesting exercise. Here are some gleanings:

I was 22 in 1991. The circumstances--I had just graduated from college. I had made a decision to stay in Manhattan for the summer. A first--all other summers in college I had spent at home in Oklahoma. Priority #1 was to find a job. I had two interviews that summer. The first, Manhattan/Ogden, rejected me. The second, Geary County, hired me. Gleaning: it was a time of self-relient (good term) ventures of faith. It was a time when I did not get my first desires, but the side roads I was directed down proved to be amazing.

Another key characteristic was simply my decison to stay in Manhattan long term. I made the decision with as much wisdom as I had, but it was a wisdom beyond my years and understanding. I see it now as a vote for community. Most of my college friends had moved away in May, but I had no desire to leave. I recognized that a community existed--even beyond my college friends--and I sensed that something life-altering had already begun in my life. Gleaning: it was a time for noting the truly important things in life and embracing them without hesitation. A time to value the role of community.

The final most important detail had actually precipitated from an experience two years prior. A painful experience left a wound on my heart. I really didn't realize it, but the master Gardener had planted a seed in that wound. Just like you would use a trowel to plant a row of seeds in the garden. It was about this time--the summer of 1991--that seed began to germinate under the thick layers of my heart. Gleaning: there is a death that will result in life. A season for everything under heaven. You can't see the seed die, and you can't know for sure that it is sending tender green shoots up through the fertile soil. You wait. You believe. You trust. You hope. You live.

If you wonder who I am as a 36 year old body living in a 22 year old life... I'm that girl, just out of college, setting out on her own, embracing community, and on the verge of new growth.

Her eyes are set on the doorway.