Thank God for all I missed.

I remember when I was little and I wanted to be someone else.

I wished my voice wasn't deep.  I wished my hair was straight.  I wished I wasn't so tall, that my hips weren't so wide, that my teeth were straighter.  I wished that I played soccer or softball.  I wished for popular friends and a big house with a pool and for my parents to be together & happily married.  

I pictured my future life like something from a movie.  I would go to school and study to be a doctor or a teacher or something normal.  I would be married by 23, kids by 25, and I would have lots of money.

At the ripe age of 20, I have achieved none of those things.  I've grown taller to 5'11", my hips have grown, my teeth are still imperfect, my parents aren't together, I'm not so athletic, and I'm not even close to marriage.  Oh, and I'm broke.  Oh, oh, and I don't know what to do with my life.

It's funny how that works.  When I was little, I knew what I wanted.  Now, I don't know what the heck I want, but I do know what I do not want.  I know that I do not want to be a doctor or a teacher (hail no, what was I thinking) and I do not want to be married by 23.

I'm not sure where things shifted, but at some point, I became okay with not achieving those things.  I became okay with the life that I would develop into.  I became okay with the imperfections and okay with the not-so-wonderful movie life.  I'm okay with the fact that I do not have those things that I imagined at the young age of 12 that I needed.

I can testify that it does get better.  The older I get, the more I realize that life has a way of playing out as it wishes and not as we wish, the sweeter it gets.  Being happy with the person that you are and the life that you're living is a very joyful feeling.

I can't imagine being someone else.  I can't imagine myself with the cookie cutter life I thought I needed.  I can't imagine not thinking all the time or not allowing myself the extra calories that we all know I don't need or not failing Jesus over and over so that each time we reconnect, I'm lost and drowning and wholeheartedly blissful.  I can't imagine having it all together so wonderfully that I want for nothing.  

I'm thankful that Jesus knew what I needed much better than I knew.  I'm thankful that He met me when I met Him and He chose to work in me.  I'm thankful that His plan unfolds while mine is happily (and thankfully) forgotten.  I'm thankful for the brokenness I've lived, the people I've met (and forgotten), the triumph I've felt from overcoming what I thought would swallow me, and the humbling that the Lord has done in me (y'all should have seen my ego about six years ago. I thought I was IT).

I'm happy that I didn't get all I thought I needed.  I would be unhappy.  I'm happy that I need Jesus, that I so desperately need grace and mercy and forgiveness.  

"My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience." James 1:2-3

I'm so happy to not have it all figured out.  I'm happy that I learn as I go.  I'm happy that the Lord continues to be faithful to me when I mess up and that I couldn't ever screw up bad enough.  So happy about all those things.

Thank God for all I missed cause it led me here to this.