Thoughts On Turning 33…

“It is your birthday. False! It is the anniversary of your birthday. You are only born once.” -Dwight Schrute

There are certain times throughout the year that cause us to reflect on the past and plan for the future.  New Year’s Day, spiritual birthdays, and physical birthdays are probably the top three such occasions for doing so in my own life.  

I’ve always heard older people talk about how time seems to go by quicker the older you get, and I feel like I’m starting to feel the same.  It seems like just yesterday I was 30 and in my first year of law school, and yet somehow, it’s already been three years since then.  Sometimes I still feel like a teenager, but then reality hits when I get to attend parent-teacher conferences for my first grader and hear about how well he is doing, in the same school district I was in for 13 years. 

Every season of life is an opportunity for growth, and I have loved the experience of being dad to my two (almost three) kids and the honor of being husband to my wife, Jill.  This time has taught me so much about how my heavenly Father loves me.  It sounds so cliché, and many people say it, but age truly is just a number.  Life is better defined by the sum of our experiences and how we have responded than simply by the amount of time we have existed on the Earth.  There are both young and old people who haven’t grown a day in their life, and there are young and old people who are some of the wisest people I know.

I fail every day, but I pray the day never comes that I would become apathetic about my failures, leading to complacency.  Though growth is often painful, I have hope knowing that Jesus Christ has taken the ultimate pain for my sake.  I don’t know what God has next for me in my 34^th year, but I pray that whatever it is, I would learn something from it and grow from it, so that I may look more like my Savior every day.  

“It’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.” -Unknown

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