"For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11
Jeremiah 29:11
It's a popular verse. I can flash back to several different points in my time as a Christian (which would be since... 2000) when I was reminded of it, or read it, and what it made me feel. When I was 19, I was a zealous, fairly new convert. I rattled off to lots of people about what they were supposed to do for God, unashamed but often atop a pedestal of my own making. At the time, I clung to Jeremiah 29:11 as I weighed my options- Did I join the military like I'd been dreaming of since I was 15? Maybe I was supposed to be a missionary, or something else like that.
I ended up in the military after all. I spent the first year and a half training for my Air Force job specialty, and also in one heck of a rollercoaster ride dating the man I eventually married. In the middle of it all, we were broken up for a few months, and then Jeremiah 29:11 was my solace, my promise. I blasted Maroon 5 while I sulked in my dorm room, trying to convince myself that life really could be endured without the boy who (cruelly) happened to live just across the way.
And now here we are- We're married! I'm a wife. My brother said to me not too long ago that it is still weird for him to pair my first name with my "new" last name. "I've been married for 3 years, you know," I reminded him with as much importance puffed into my voice as I could manage. Three years- we're old pros at this whole marriage thing! And we've got two adorable babies. Well, one's a baby. One's a toddler and getting so big and talking more and more and... I don't want to talk about it. Ah, I remember the day he was born...
Honesty time: When I decided to transfer into the Reserves so I could be home with my son, I did it mostly because I figured it was the right thing to do, not because of some burning desire to be a stay-at-home mom. If you had asked us in the 4 months sandwiched between our wedding day and the day two lines appeared on the pregnancy test, my hubby and I would have speedily assured you that we were waiting at least 5 years to start a family. I guess our rings had some power akin to Frodo's, because the plan -obviously- was discarded quickly. So there I was, voluntarily removed off the glamorous fast track I'd been on, and suddenly elbows-deep in diapers and yummy baby smells ( and some not so yummy baby smells), and surprisingly humming with the glow of a passion far more intense than I'd expected- motherhood. Don't get me wrong: I had a nice, painful identity crisis that spanned, off and on, for most of that first year. Another year later finds me the matriarch of a little family of 4, more in love with mommyness than ever but still occasionally prone to drift off in a little sailboat, straight into a fog of 'what-if's.'
My female relatives swear that every woman goes through a change when she's 25. I wonder sometimes if that's true, and what it could mean for me. Will I suddenly just... settle? Will I be wretchedly unhappy? Will all the questions that still dangle in my mind be tied up, or snipped off? I suppose this is another Jeremiah 29:11 moment in life.
I ended up in the military after all. I spent the first year and a half training for my Air Force job specialty, and also in one heck of a rollercoaster ride dating the man I eventually married. In the middle of it all, we were broken up for a few months, and then Jeremiah 29:11 was my solace, my promise. I blasted Maroon 5 while I sulked in my dorm room, trying to convince myself that life really could be endured without the boy who (cruelly) happened to live just across the way.
And now here we are- We're married! I'm a wife. My brother said to me not too long ago that it is still weird for him to pair my first name with my "new" last name. "I've been married for 3 years, you know," I reminded him with as much importance puffed into my voice as I could manage. Three years- we're old pros at this whole marriage thing! And we've got two adorable babies. Well, one's a baby. One's a toddler and getting so big and talking more and more and... I don't want to talk about it. Ah, I remember the day he was born...
Honesty time: When I decided to transfer into the Reserves so I could be home with my son, I did it mostly because I figured it was the right thing to do, not because of some burning desire to be a stay-at-home mom. If you had asked us in the 4 months sandwiched between our wedding day and the day two lines appeared on the pregnancy test, my hubby and I would have speedily assured you that we were waiting at least 5 years to start a family. I guess our rings had some power akin to Frodo's, because the plan -obviously- was discarded quickly. So there I was, voluntarily removed off the glamorous fast track I'd been on, and suddenly elbows-deep in diapers and yummy baby smells ( and some not so yummy baby smells), and surprisingly humming with the glow of a passion far more intense than I'd expected- motherhood. Don't get me wrong: I had a nice, painful identity crisis that spanned, off and on, for most of that first year. Another year later finds me the matriarch of a little family of 4, more in love with mommyness than ever but still occasionally prone to drift off in a little sailboat, straight into a fog of 'what-if's.'
My female relatives swear that every woman goes through a change when she's 25. I wonder sometimes if that's true, and what it could mean for me. Will I suddenly just... settle? Will I be wretchedly unhappy? Will all the questions that still dangle in my mind be tied up, or snipped off? I suppose this is another Jeremiah 29:11 moment in life.
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