Turning 30!
This week I did something that still feels a little unreal: I turned 30 years old.
Thirty is an age I’ve always known was coming, and yet somehow it arrived faster than I expected. Half of me doesn’t feel old enough to be 30 at all. When I was younger, I imagined that by this point I would have my life completely together. I thought I’d feel like a real adult, several years deep into marriage, surrounded by multiple kids, and fully settled into a career.
So if I’m being honest, my life doesn’t look the way I thought it would. I’m almost two years into my second marriage, carrying the story of a divorce, walking through infertility with no children, and while I deeply love the job I’m in, it’s nowhere near the career path I once imagined.
And yet, it’s better than I ever could have hoped for.
By saying that, I don’t mean it hasn’t been hard. I want to be clear about that. This past year has been incredibly sweet, but it has also been deeply difficult and emotional. There have been moments of joy and moments of grief, seasons of hope mixed with seasons of waiting. It’s been a year that has stretched me, refined me, and taught me how to trust the Lord in ways I hadn’t before.
Even though my life doesn’t look like the picture I once painted in my head, I still turned 30. Time didn’t pause until everything made sense. The birthday still came. And maybe I don’t feel like an adult in the way I thought I would, but I do feel something else: gratitude, humility, and a growing sense of anticipation.
I’m genuinely looking forward to what the next 30 years will hold, which is a sentence I never thought I’d say. But the Lord has proven Himself faithful, even when the path has looked different than expected. I believe He has sweet things in mind, things I can’t fully see yet.
So as I step into this new decade, I’m holding my plans loosely and my hope tightly. I’m dreaming, praying, and imagining what life might look like when I’m 60, trusting that the same God who carried me here will continue to lead me forward.
Thirty feels wild. It feels tender. It feels hopeful.
And I’m ready to see what the Lord does next.