The Decade I "Grew Up" in...

"Hither to Thy Love has blessed me, Thou has brought me to this place.

And I know by Thy good pleasure, lead me home by Thy good grace"
(from Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing)

Today is the last day of a month, a year, a decade. We are sitting at the threshold of a new one. Though I am not sure what we are to call this decade that is about to pass, (a friend said it is called the "oughts" as opposed to the teens, eighties, nineties, etc) it's funny to think that I have now lived through three and a half decades. I was born in the seventies, in elementary and middle school in the eighties, high school and college in the nineties. Most of my growing up, I suppose.

Growing up doesn't only happen in body. Those first decades were ones of physical growing, of learning and formal education. Though I had accomplished a lot, at the end of the nineties, I still felt like a girl. Growing up in the heart and spirit and into womanhood takes a lifetime, I think, but I think the events of the past decade, the "oughts" have been the most pivotal in growing me from girlhood into womanhood.

Ten years ago, on the cusp of the year 2000, I was a 2nd year teacher teaching 2nd grade. I was young and growing in experience, but I had much to learn. One of my students wrote in my scrapbook from that year that "the class is going crazy"...oh my. Looks like I needed to get some classroom management under my belt! Not only was I a young teacher, but I felt the tugging of God on my heart to leave all that I knew (family, home, job, friends, financial security, budding career) to spend a year and a half in Ireland on a missionary training team. So in June of 2000, I left it all behind to set out on the adventure of a lifetime.

As I look back on the past ten years, it astounds me to see the faithfulness of God through all He has led me in. He was faithful in Ireland as I learned a new culture, lived on raised support, made new friends, and adjusted to team living. When I finally came home from Ireland in 2003, I was in total dismay that I had to be home. What I wanted, and thought I was supposed to do, was to be a missionary. I had prepared for long-term living on the mission field and was sure I'd be single. It was obvious that I was supposed to stay home and my heart was broken. I had no idea what was next (turns out the team I was on has slowly transitioned over the past few years to become Irish-led, which was the original goal...and all save one of my teammates are back in the US. Who knew back then?!?)

He was faithful as I struggled with being home, being jobless, and being single. Within a few months, I was totally surprised with a new teaching job, a fantastic housing situation, and a blind date with the man that in a year's time would become my husband.

He was faithful as LeGrande and I navigated those early days of marriage and the two year struggle that followed to have a child. He was faithful when our first was lost to miscarriage and our faith was tested as never before. And again, faithful to give us the gift of another child, our firstborn, Jack. He has been faithful to provide for us financially so that I could be on an extended 17 month leave from my job to care for Jack at home.

He was faithful even as all four of my grandparents died in these past ten years, leaving my parents to assume the position as the top level of the family and my siblings and me to take their position as spouses and parents, the generation in the middle.

He was faithful to provide dear friends who I now realize have been friends for over a decade. Friends who have walked with me from college to single post-grads to Ireland to marriage and now to parenthood. What an incredible blessing it is to have women who know you (and you know) so well and have such a history with. These are lifelong friends, and treasures.

Events like these do more than keep life busy, they grow your heart. Laughter, change, new relationships, old friendships, heart-wrenching pain and tears, healing, and joy...they make a girl into a woman. And so they have. A girl looks to things and situations to bring her happiness. A woman looks back and forward over her life, sees God's faithfulness, and has joy for what was and what will be, knowing that He is enough. So with the eyes of a woman, a wife, and a mother, I look back on this departing decade, remember God's provision and faithfulness, and look forward to what the coming ten years will bring.