My Mid-Twenties Crisis

Yesterday as we prepped for our homegroup's pizza night, I had a moment of crisis. Why? Because my 26th birthday is next week. 

I know--I'm still young...but I panicked, wondering if passing that milestone would suddenly make me un-relatable to the eighteen year olds we are welcoming to our group. I mean, that's an eight-year gap!

My thoughts went something like this: I'm married. That instantly puts me a world away from them. Then they'll figure out my class year was 2010...the same year most of them were just starting high school. When I was babysitter age, they would have been the age to babysit! I can't even stay up late to hang out with them...I'm so lame...

I was feeling this even though my husband is over thirty and still totally relevant! Even though I could point to a generous crowd of young mommies who are encouragement powerhouses to the dozens of college girls who flock around them, I was still feeling like my expiration date was about to start flashing red. 

Because it's true; I am no longer the student who frequents coffee shops, has five sets of flip flops, and carries a backpack in lieu of a purse. 

But there is another truth: I'm also no longer the college student who crammed six discipleship meetings into every week, who strove to perform so well as "mentor" that she missed the chance to be "friend", and who carried a lump of lonliness and its consequential resentment. 

So much healing has happened since then. So much humbling, and still I need more. 

Today Jesus showed me that my desire to be relevant should take a back seat to a better goal: to love them well. 

I'm starting to realize that the thing a student needs may not be another friend who has the same struggles, insecurities, boy troubles, and lives at the same stage of life. What they really need is Jesus. And Jesus can use me--at any age--to listen, to encourage, to talk about the serious and the silly, to share rides and meals and life, and to bring them back to the relentless love of the Savior that I myself need desperately and say, "I've been there. And Jesus is still good."

Because there are some things that transcend generations X, Y, Z, and beyond, until He returns. 

Summer photo album

How has the summer been for you?

Yes, OK, technically the dog days of heat are still blazing outside, but here in our college town, the familiar sights and sounds of a new fall semester abound. Wal-Mart is overflowing with chaotic bins of school supplies, the streets are clogged with halting freshmen (and their parents!), and a sign at the local Starbucks declares what everyone already knows: that pumpkin spice lattes are only a few months away! 

Tomorrow classes begin again, and I can't help but feel the nostalgic pull to books and backpacks and the crisp smoothness of new spiral notebooks. *Sigh* I will forever be a student on the inside. 

Looking behind, this third summer of married life has had a completely different flavor from the first two. 

Last year was a summer of mountains, car trouble adventures, friendship insecurities, and wide-flung travel. The summer before was even crazier, with our wedding, honeymoon, head-lice (ooooooh, now there's a story...), and the foreignness of navigating my new role as wife. 

Despite another trip to Italy, some deep soul-searching, a long and ongoing job search, and a few road trips in-state, this summer has had a comfortable rhythm of rest, work, and the homey pleasures that come from having frequent guests. We painted my former study room-turned-guest room, transforming it from this color...

to this. (Correct color, but not an actual picture of the room. I wish!)

And you're probably thinking, "Uhhh, yeah.  A VERY needed change, especially if people plan to SLEEP there." Yep. I agree. 

Even though our new guest room was in progress for most of the summer, several dear friends and family members blessed us by breaking it in and keeping us company. I enjoyed them so much that I barely missed the mountains! 

So here is a short picture update of our summer shenanigans, to be followed by some more thoughtful posts soon. Right now, however, I simply wanted to let my bloggy friends know we hadn't died or anything, given my looooonnng absence from this site. :)

This dear friend spent a whole weekend with us early in the summer! She tried the local frozen yogurt, went with us to the George H. Bush presidential library, introduced us to this fascinating documentary. 

The Berlin Wall came down during Bush Sr.'s presidency, and his presidential library displays a colorful, graffiti-covered chunk of the demolished barrier. 

Then came my sister and her husband! We spent an entire day in the city for a conference, and then sis and I squeezed in a quick walk before they left. The flower we found on the walk made me catch my breath. I mean, just LOOK at it! Can you believe something like this was simply growing wild, unnoticed, on a walking trail in a city park?

And then the other sister came with her boyfriend! I had to work, but the hubs took them to the famed Blue Bell factory an hour away for a tour. If you live in Texas, you must, I repeat MUST visit this place! 

The night before they left, we all went to a local coffee shop for some Harry Potter-inspired "butter beer" (actually cream soda, butterscotch syrup and heavy cream) and a card version of Monopoly. 

And of course, we painted ourselves blue for free food with the summer homegroup! (I had work the next morning, so I was excused from full blue coverage.)

We had more visitors, there were several beautiful weddings, and there were countless silly, serious, tearful moments in between, but life is not always recorded as it's lived. Sometimes the spontaneity of a moment is half its joy. The record-keeping would spoil it, rather than preserve it. So there you go: a little snapshot of our summer!