It’s Saturday! And day 5 of the series 31 Days of Lessons from My 20’s. On the weekends I’m going to post some “fun stuff” to inspire you. If you want to read all the posts in this series, you can find every post listed here. If you want to have all the posts delivered to your email inbox, subscribe here.

 

Every time I hear the song “These are Days” by 10,000 Maniacs I think of my college friend, Jenny. The year after we graduated she invited us to her parents lake house for a “reunion” even though only a summer had passed. She made us t-shirts that said “These are the Days” on them. I still wear mine sometimes.Every time I hear this song I think of Jenny, too.

I was barely a twenty-something.

Little did I know that the years to come would be “The Days”. Days of laughter. Days of mistakes. Days of heartbreak. Days of choices. Days of promise. Days to be filled that I would remember. Days of foundation.

These are your days. Live them.

These are the days
These are days you’ll remember
Never before and never since, I promise
Will the whole world be warm as this
And as you feel it,
You’ll know it’s true
That you are blessed and lucky
It’s true that you
Are touched by something
That will grow and bloom in you

These are days that you’ll remember
When May is rushing over you
With desire to be part of the miracles
You see in every hour
You’ll know it’s true
That you are blessed and lucky
It’s true that you are touched
By something that will grow and bloom in you

These are days
These are the days you might fill
With laughter until you break
These days you might feel
A shaft of light
Make its way across your face
And when you do
Then you’ll know how it was meant to be
See the signs and know their meaning
It’s true
Then you’ll know how it was meant to be
Hear the signs and know they’re speaking
To you, to you

What are you going to remember about today?

Photo Credit: Creative Commons

It’s day 4 of the series 31 Days of Lessons Learned from My 20’s. If you want to read all the posts in this series, you can find every post listed here. If you want to have all the posts delivered to your email inbox, subscribe here.

When I was in college I wanted to major in English. I like to write, a lot. And if I have an academic strength, writing is it.

I took a lot of English classes. But as I looked around my college classroom, deep in discussion about Hamlet and As I Lay Dying, I didn’t sound like my fellow classmates – many whom were English majors. They were much more literary sounding – the kind of people you imagine reading out loud to their date as they sit on a blanket under an oak tree.

That wasn’t me.

So I decided I wasn’t smart enough to be an English major.

Instead I majored in Early Childhood Education. Then I got a Master’s degree in Reading Education.

For 13 years I taught little kids how to read. For all but two, I strongly disliked every minute of it.

If only . . .

Words that ring in my ears regularly.

I know God’s promise that all things work together for good. I know there was a plan that He was in the middle of even then. I know that I didn’t mess-up His plan.

I know all of this in my head. But my heart still aches for English class.

When you’re 37, you’ll wish you’d have started now.

So start now.

Listen deep inside yourself to the whisper that keeps murmuring the same words over-and-over again. Don’t squelch it down so low that it eventually pretend-fades. Even if it isn’t possible or even practical, find a way to keep it alive. If only on the weekends.

Maybe for you the whisper is to write or sing or sew. Maybe it is to move far away. Maybe it’s to travel for fun or go on a mission trip. Maybe it’s to keep practicing that instrument you started playing in the fifth grade. Maybe it’s to major in that hard major.

Believe in God who puts those whispers in our hearts. Believe that He will equip you with whatever it is He is calling you to do.

You see, those whispers, they don’t go away. They just creep back up again and again and leave you saying “I wish I had started then”.

 What do you need to start now?

Photo Credit: Creative Commons: Paul Downey

 

It’s day 3 of the series 31 Days of Lessons Learned from My 20’s. If you want to read all the posts in this series, you can find every post listed here. If you want to have all the posts delivered to your email inbox, subscribe here.

You know when you’re a little girl and people ask you what you want to be when you grow up? Without any understanding of money or ability or reality, your mind wanders to the most fantastical occupation you can imagine: trapeze artist, astronaut, princess, marine biologist. There’s not any reason in your precious, baby mind of why that couldn’t become a reality for you.

That’s what standing on 20 years old is like. 

When I was 20 I imagined standing on a stepping stone with nine more just like it in front of me. Each representing a different year.

Together they represented a decade of promise.

As I glanced into my future, with all my hopes and dreams, no other decade held more defining moments – more defining questions. 

What will my major be? Where will I work? Will I move far away? What about graduate school? Will I have a roommate? Should I travel? Will there be a boyfriend? Will I even date? But what about marriage if I don’t date? Will there be babies? 

No longer were these just fantastical ideas that came to me from watching one-to-many Disney movies. No, these questions revealed my soul. And the answers to them determined the path my life would take. 

Unlike any other decade in your life, your 20’s start you off with a clean slate. It’s a decade of firsts. And a decade full of choices. With limited responsibility, you get to decide any direction you choose.

But with promise comes risk.

You hold in your hand the special gift of years that can be molded and shaped. A decade that will end at 29, but that will carry you into decades to come. Because, you see, whatever comes out of your 20’s will become a part of you.

So make your decade of promise one that gives you a foundation for who you want to be in your 30’s and 40’s and 50’s. Instead of only focusing on the “Where will I work?” and “Who will I marry?” questions, instead ask yourself:

What kind of person will I be?

What will I stand for?

Who will I serve?

What sacrifices will I make?

How will I grow?

And in all of it, where will Jesus be?

These questions make the more logistical ones easier to answer. 

This is your decade of promise, sweet friend. You can be whomever you wish. Make it count. When 30 rolls around life will look different. There will be more responsibility. More people dependent on you. And choice won’t be as easy to come by.

Lesson #2: Your 20’s is your decade of promise. Make it count.

 What is/was the most exciting part of being 20-something?

This is the first day of the series 31 Days of Lessons Learned from My 20’s. If you want to read all the posts in this series, you can find every post listed here. If you want to have all the posts delivered to your email inbox, subscribe here.

Wow, what a decade! A decade that changed me in ways no other will. 

I am 37 right now. But a young 37. I have been married only five years. I have an almost one-year-old baby girl. For me it’s kind of like life just started. Except that it didn’t.

There is whole lifetime that has passed. They’re called my 20’s, and for me they were the most significant years I have yet lived.

Today I’m joining hundreds (possibly thousands) of other writers for the annual #31days series. It comes every fall, but that doesn’t mean I’ve known what to write about for long. A dozen ideas swarmed my mind, but one question kept peaking through my thoughts:

What do I want to tell my daughter about her 20’s?

And so here we are – 31 Days of Lessons from My 20’s.

Of course, my lessons may not be my daughter’s lessons. And my lessons may not be yours. But my prayer is as my life verse states, “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives” (Genesis 50:20). If my stories are used for good, to help someone else experience the abundant life Jesus promises, then they are not in vain. If not, I might as well wallow in the memories.

Who are these lessons for exactly?

My entire 20’s were lived as a single woman. Obviously this is not the case for all women. But even though the lens of singleness is what I look through, I think there are some universal truths of life in our 20’s whether we are single or married. So married friends, I hope you read along, make comments, and add your own thoughts.

It’s not all bad.

This is not a doom and gloom series. I’m not going to tell you all you’re doing wrong and how when you turn 30 life is over. Hopefully, instead, I will inspire you to see all the potential saturated within these years so that when you get to 30 you will look back and see a firm rock which you prepared to stand upon. And your 30’s will take you into the life your dreams imagined.

So come along with me through the lessons I lived and the years I remember. Let’s use my stories to help you create yours.

 

Now it’s your turn! What is one lesson from your 20’s you’d like to pass along to another woman?