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I Love My Body – Hands and Feet
Hands and feet are the two body parts I used to hate and wish I never had. The two body parts that–along with my head–cost me almost ten years of my life. I’ve shared my story before and I’ll share it again. It was because of severe eczema that took the skin off my feet, face, and hands. I also gained one hundred pounds in ten months from taking Prednisone to control my skin. So when I say I love my body–it’s nothing short of a miracle! There were many times I felt like giving up or wishing I had someone else’s body or body parts. I always felt like…
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Reflections on Life and Failure
Tonight, I write to make sense of life and reflect on failure too. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed hosting guest bloggers for the past few months, but I felt a stir in my spirit tonight. So, instead of sleep, I will listen to that still small voice and write. Write aloud. Write to heal. I started a series called Monday Meditations last month and it has not gone well. In fact, it failed. I wouldn’t be surprised if I got more than 30-40 hits per blog. Compared to the almost hundreds (sometimes thousands) of hits I got for previous series including I Survived My 20s or Pre Engagement Questions–this is shocking. Well,…
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I Survived My 20s – Unmarried
[Guest Post by Cathering Kabinga] – I once read an article that claimed that marriages between the ages of 20-27 are the most successful(still have it, don’t know why). Page after page only went out to prove that a marriage conducted in the early years of one’s life has the most potential of working out. Reasons ranged from having children and raising them while still young to handling finances together. The most memorable of them all cited the bible as one that encourages early marriages with the verse in Proverbs that speaks of ‘loving the wife of your youth.’ So why am I unmarried? I was 25 when I attended…
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I Survived My 20s – Dreams
[Guest Post by Caris Adel] – I love the movie Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist. When I watch it, I relive my dream from high school. My dreams were to move to New York City and spend my 20s living the city life– whatever that meant. The issue of cost never did resolve itself. My more realistic plan was to get an apartment and go to school in a midwest town near my high school boyfriend. But alas, we ended up pregnant instead, giving birth right before his final exams his freshman year of college. We got married, and by the time we were 26, we had our fifth and…
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I Survived My 20s – Fatherless
[Guest Post by Anonymous] – From a very young age, I knew the Lord. I was lucky to have grown up in the church, and was strong in my faith. God knew that he had to prepare me at an early age for what I would be up against. Secrecy. Shame. Pain. I am fatherless. As a teenager I was forced to hold a terrible secret, one I knew when change my life forever if I ever spoke of it. I did all that I could to hide the hurt of what happened to me. I walked through life as if in a dream or a daze, and put a…
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I Survived My 20s – Regret
[Guest Post by Kristin Tennant] – What is this thing people call a “honeymoon period?” Because it’s something the first decade of my adult life was seriously lacking. We got married at 22. Sure, we had a honeymoon–a week-long trip to the Massachusetts coast–but it ended the day we pulled back into the driveway of our first home, a small, upstairs apartment in an old house. Within a week of trying to figure out what it really meant to be married–to share a bathroom and a bed, to make daily decisions together for two rather than just for one–I was sobbing on the phone with my mom. What had I…
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I Survived My 20s – Moving
[Guest Post by Marie Osborne] – I survived my 20s by moving over and over and over again. In 2004, I was married to my best friend and at an amazing church. We had a fantastic support system of friends and family. The next 3 years, my job just kept getting better, our friendships deeper, our family closer, and our marriage stronger. Then in 2006, we decided my husband should go back to school. So we moved to Los Angeles for two years as he completed his MBA. Suddenly, our deep roots were gone, and I didn’t know a soul. I had worked hard for 6 years to build an…
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I Survived My 20s – Dateless
[Guest Post by Lindsay Blackburn] – I survived my 20s. In fact, I survived my 20s–dateless. Yep, you read that right. No coffee dates. No dinner dates. And, most of all, no wedding date. This is my story. When I moved back to my hometown after graduating from college at age 21, my priorities were finding a full-time job, moving out of my parents’ basement, and reconnecting with some high school friends. Sure, I wanted to get married and have children someday, but I just assumed it would happen in the perfect linear fashion that most 20-somethings expect. Go to college → Graduate from college → Get a job &…
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I Survived My 20s – Singleness
[Guest Post by Monique Pearson] – Trust in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. If you’ve grown up in the church you’ve probably heard this a lot. For me the desire of my heart was to be married and well it still is. Since I was a little girl I was told to pray and ask God to bring the perfect future husband into my life. I knew I wanted to be married at some point so I had faith and believed that God would bring the right man. When I started to date around the age of 25 I really prayed about who…
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I Survived My 20s – Depression
[Guest Post by Addie Zierman] – I turned 20 on a warm day in July, and then, two weeks later, I got married. There was pink tulle everywhere and 200 roses that we ordered online and arranged into bouquets in the church basement. During the ceremony, two of my best friends from high school sang “Be Thou My Vision,” and their voices filled the room, haunting and sweet. This is how I began my 20s: eyes closed, heart raised. I was full to the brim with love and with Jesus, surrounded by all of my closest friends who felt the exact same way. From that alter, the future looked sparkling…
