Dear 29 Year Old Daughter

Dear 29 year old daughter,

Today you turn 29, the age when women often say they want to freeze time. The age that represents youth but not too young. Youth with maturity.  Life with enough past to be grounded.  Life with enough future to be hopeful.

Without me even saying so, you know that I don’t buy in to the ‘29 year old freeze’ myth and I know you don’t either.

Aging well is not about how we look with graying hair and wrinkles, but how we look at them. Aging well is embracing each decade for whatever it brings and finding corners of sweet contentment somewhere in it. So look at each era in life as the right time for right now. Every season can’t be the best time, but it can be the right one for that time.

When you were an infant, completely dependent on us for your nourishment and warmth and snuggles, that was the right time of your life.

When you were a first grader, discovering you could run the fastest, that was the right time of your life.

When you were new at your junior high, reaching out and making new friends, that was the right time of your life.

When you were in high school, birthing your passion for social justice, that was the right time of your life.

When you finished your master’s degree with high honors and serious adversity, that was the right time of your life.

When you found your soul mate, maker of best homemade chicken pot pie ever, that was the right time of your life.

When you established your career, combining social and administrative gifts, that was the right time of your life.

When you first heard his little heartbeat, feeling your own race with excitement, that was the right time of your life.

The truth is, intertwined with those good moments were some difficult ones too.

The truth is, you will remember much of the past more positively than it felt at the time.

The truth is, the future can be scary.

The truth is, your thirties are going to be downright exhausting.

The truth is, we can’t simply positive-think ourselves into looking at each season as right.

But you can do that, because you have put your life into His plans.

David said it lovelier than I can in this Psalm.

For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place,

when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;

all the days ordained for me were written in your book

before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, God! 
How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand –

when I awake, I am still with you.

[Psalm 139:13-18, NIV]

So, my precious daughter, celebrate your 29^th birthday and then let it go into the memory bank. Know that He has each year of your future in His hands. And whatever that is, His work in you is wonderful. I know that full well.