She Did Better Than She Thought

At any given time, I tend to have half a dozen projects taking place, and one of them I'm working on right now takes me back into the early, early archives of this blog. I'm trying to back up some of my posts and make it easier for me to look up things I've written about before when I want to find them again. 

I haven't looked at the early posts for a long time. I started blogging in what feels like a whole different lifetime. I was still single, working in Financial Aid, and I didn't love winter any more than I love it now. 

It's funny to me how very different my day-to-day life looked back then. I slept in on Saturdays until noon or even early afternoon. It was apparently nothing for me to stay up (or even out with friends!) until about two in the morning - on a very regular basis. I still scrapbooked the good old-fashioned way, with papers and printed pictures and glue sticks. (And I made my own cards.) 

And yet there were some things that were still the same, like the intensity with which I loved to study the Bible, and the amount of time I spent writing. 

Braeya was just a toddler kitten, and I still had her older brother, Kaegan. (He died in 2011.) My friends' kids, who called me Aunt Bekah, were just babies and toddlers, and now they're all in junior high and high school. I was becoming a decent cook, but I still had a lot to learn. 

I was still living in Marion back then, and our Hobby Lobby had closed. Meijer hadn't come to town yet, and I couldn't stand shopping at Wal-Mart. 

And I collected embarrassing moments like I currently collect dust. (Tomorrow's podcast will be a fun nod to that!) 

But here's the thing I've noticed most of all in all the combing through old posts. 

I did a better job muddling through life than I felt like I was doing at the time.

Those were the days when I spent hours in prayer asking God to sustain me in singleness, because I ached to be married. Those were the days when I felt like I couldn't do anything right, because there were so many decisions I had to make on my own. Those were the days I wasn't sure my contributions to life mattered, because life felt so scattered.

But on this side of 40, I'm awfully proud of that just-turning-30 Bekah girl. She didn't do everything right, of course. She made a lot of mistakes that she talked about openly and she made dozens more that (wisely) didn't make it to the blog. But she tried her best and she succeeded more than she knew.

I see a girl who struggled through a math-laden job but gave it her all anyway. (I found posts where I made vague references to difficult moments when students and parents gave me grief and found those memories sailing through my head in living color as I read. Some things never fully leave.) 

I see a girl who loved her friends fiercely and did everything she could to invest in them. Some of those friends are still active in my life today and others have become more distant with the passing of time, the widening of geography, and the changes in circumstances. But I'm richer today because they were deeply invested in me then. 

I see a girl who attacked life fiercely, even when she didn't understand adulthood at times. (I told Ryan that now that I have the privilege of his wisdom on house stuff, I'm not even sure I could do now some of the things I did then to keep up with maintenance and repairs!)

I see a girl who treasured memory-making and life-shaping, and that's something that has never changed. 

I see a girl who needed to grow and refine, but she was purposeful and intentional about her life. 

This is one of the reasons I love journaling and blogging. I love the perspective it affords. It gives me great hope that I'll be able to look back in another ten years and see more happening than I can see in this moment.

And I hope it gives you great hope that for whatever things you feel have been lesser-than - or even a complete failure - in your own life might have gone just a little bit better than you thought they did. 

Above all, remember that for every moment that we walk this earth, we always have room to grow, mature, change, and improve. May we always be seeking the Lord and His guidance over us so we can learn from what we've not done well and do better with it next time. Grateful for His grace today!