Today I turn 28. I am waist-deep in my late-twenties. I am growing increasingly aware of the generation gap present when I’m around the college students I work with and minister to. I find myself in more and more conversations that subtly (and not-so-subtly) inquire why I’m not yet married. I’ve had a brooding sense of stagnation, a feeling that only in recent months has begun to lift. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I went back and read the birthday essay I wrote last year and was struck by just how optimistic my outlook on the year ahead seemed to be. It was the epitome of looking at the glass half full despite my typical proclivity to the contrary. I chose to focus on what was good in my life. It was an especially difficult choice because at that time I was in the middle of some painful and uncertain circumstances. But even in the midst of those events I can remember thinking to myself, “Well, at least things can’t get any worse.” Of that I was wrong.

I will remember the year between my twenty-seventh and twenty-eighth birthdays as the most difficult and most formative year of my life up to that point. It was a year when I came face to face with my demons, my idols, and my savior, none of whom seemed to want to leave me alone. Throughout 2011 I found myself becoming increasingly distraught with disillusionment, losing any sense of direction and understanding of my life that I’d had prior. I experienced God’s discipline and his faithfulness; I found him to be true to his word in ways I’d previously only read about. He fought for me even when all I could do was wait and hope he would come through.

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