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| 18 and ready to conquer the world! |
Well here we are! Both young twenty-one year olds (and still best friends, thank goodness)...we made it to the great years and we are slowly beginning to realize that they are not so great. Now, don't get me wrong, there have been great, great things that have happened in our twenties, (including TJ my fiancé Earl) but I think we had this idea that life was going to be easy, with no more worries or struggles once we made it to our twenties, or our later college years. By that point, you can relax..you have it all figured out...it's all downhill from there...yeah?
Well newsflash to us, life will always be hard.
And we will probably never know what we are doing.
Freshman year, we thought that we would have it all figured out by now. We would know how to how to navigate through tough friendships, how to embrace whatever is handed to us, how to give really great advice all the time, how to lead and love well. We thought we would have all the answers to everyone's questions, we would be joyful in every circumstance, good or bad, we would always forgive easily. We would know how to do all of these things perfectly, with so much grace and somehow it would all happen instantly. Senior year, we would just wake up and have all of these things down to a science!!
Well, Rachel and Emily, and every twenty something year old, here is what we didn't realize, or didn't want to accept...
life is all about the process...
...we just get to enjoy the ride. We will never know what we are doing, but praise Jesus that He does! I am entering in to a completely new season of wife, pastor's wife, teacher, and Mississippi resident. I am so extremely excited but I have also worried myself to the point of tears, wondering if I am enough? How can I make all these changes and start all of these foreign roles as a twenty-one year old? I don't know what I am doing, I still feel like a goofball that loves to watch Disney movies, dance and color. Thankfully, I don't have to 'know what to do.' What does that even mean?
I know that Jesus loves me and I know how to be Rachel and that my friends, is enough.
Our entire life, we get to be apart of this beautiful process of becoming more like Jesus. It does not happen over night. Learning how to become a good wife, doctor, teacher, speech pathologist (in Emily's case), mom, Sunday school teacher, or _______ does not happen over night. We get to learn these things in this incredible process.
So for all you Emilys and Rachels out there, your twenties probably won't be easy. Navigating through this life thing is weird, especially at this time in life. I totally know that there is a lot of pressure, there are hard decisions, there are sad goodbyes and happy hellos. There is this odd transition between being a girl and becoming a woman.
But there is good news! You don't have to figure it out. Simply love God and He will show you what to do and how to do it well. I promise that He will teach you, and I also promise that it will not happen over night. So accept the process and more importantly, enjoy the process, even if it's hard. Just be you.
And to Emily McLain, even if sometimes it doesn't feel like it, we are not the same girls that we were freshman year. I have loved watching you grow over these years and I love watching you become such a strong follower of Jesus...what a blessing and encouragement you are to me. I am excited for the years to come, to look back on these difficult twenties and thank God for the process.
Oh. But we are still goofy...I hope that never changes.
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| (This is Hannah pictured with us, she is also a twenty-one year old that really doesn't get this whole 'life' thing yet...she is just loving Jesus along with us knowing that He will figure it out) |
