Living the Good Life
In my mid-twenties I went through a bit of an identity crisis. As I was looking around at friends I began to question my worth. I had friends who were becoming doctors, attorneys, city leaders, ecetera and I had settled on teaching. Now before any of my educator friends curse me, I don’t mean ‘settled’ as though teaching isn’t one of the most important professions in the world. I mean settled in that I didn’t want to put the time and energy into medical school, nor did I have the confidence. And some of those same friends were traveling and seeing the world, and I was, well buying my first house and being a wife. As I look back I realize that I was being ridiculous.
To some extent I’ve always been a dreamer. I remember writing in a diary that one day I would be a famous writer and would get to be on Oprah. I had also dreamt that I would be driving a Mercedes…a really expensive one…by the time I was 25. So at 25, when those things hadn’t happened – granted I hadn’t written more than a research paper and I was a public school teacher making public school teacher money – I started to question where I had gone wrong.
As I inched towards 30 and started having kids, friends would start saying things like, ‘I want a husband and kids’, ‘You’re so lucky to have a great husband’. ‘Ha!’ I thought. Look who’s living the life now. I foolishly thought that I had arrived at the life I was supposed to have because other people wanted something similar.
And now here I am…in my mid-thirties (EEK!) and I realize that none of that matters. What matters is that God thinks my life is worth having. He gave His only son so that I could live. Now don’t get me wrong, I find myself whining and crying about things (like even two days ago); but, when I pull myself together I realize that this life, my life, is just fine. Do I need to change some things about ME, sure. Do I need to step into the calling God has for me, yes, but right now, at this moment, this life I have is worth living just the way it is.
Until next time…