I stalked my younger self on my blog today. It's hard to believe that I've been blogging for 5 years this month. I started back in August 2007, about one year after Kevin and I got married. I was working full-time at a job that I loved, and trying to figure out married life. Kevin and I were living in a tiny apartment at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary. In between school and work we were involved in student ministry, watched movies together, and even had time to play tennis! Imagine that!
Needless to say, life has certainly changed since then.
I used to type in quiet places where I could hear myself think, and now I try to pound out a few coherent semi-coherent words while small children climb on top of me.
Sometimes when rubber duckies are being thrown into my bubble bath I miss those days when quiet moments were the rule and not the exception.
But even back then I dreamed of being a mom. In my most quiet moments back then, my mind was filled with thoughts of nurturing up-and-coming superheros and future mommies for the glory of God.
Of course, I could have never known back then what that would truly mean.
I would have never imagined that it would bring me to a place of great need and total dependance.
But God knew.
I've been reading the book How People Grow by Cloud and Townsend. It's prompted me to think about my own spiritual growth.
"To grow, we need things that we do not have and cannot provide, and we need to have a source of those things who looks favorably upon us and who does things for us for our own good." (p. 67)
Today, as I look back on my life five years ago, I am so very thankful for God's grace in my life. I am not the same person I was five years ago, and I am still growing into the woman that God designed me to be. My greatest growth has come in those not-so-quiet moments when I've come to the end of myself and had to rely on something someone greater.
Sure, it's not wrong to miss those days of 'ole, but you couldn't give me all the "me-time" in the world to go back there.
Because I look more like Christ today...
...and I'd rather have Jesus.
