Birthday reflections

The past few years it seems like my birthday is changing in terms of what it means to me. It's still exciting, I'm not old enough yet to wish the birthdays would stop coming or anything like that, but my thoughts tend to get a little more serious than they used to.

I know this is going to sound strange but for some reason 22 seems so much older than 21 to me. It just sounds more mature or something, I don't even know. I woke up this morning with this feeling that I needed to hurry up and do something on my last day as a 21-year-old. I don't have any idea what it was that I needed to do, but it was just this feeling. I find myself wanting to be a little more "grown-up" now. Again, not sure what this entails, it's just this vague inclination.

I have a lot of things to do while I'm 22. Here in the next few months I have to work on boosting my GPA a bit, taking the GRE, and applying to grad schools. I will [hopefully] be walking in graduation in May, and actually receiving my diploma in December. I'll be taking my first summer classes. My roommate/very good friend is getting married in May and I really want to go to the wedding. When summer rolls around again I'll get to see my best friend (IN PERSON because as awesome as Skype is, it really just isn't the same) and, all fingers and toes crossed, meet my Mallows. I've also been doing a lot of thinking about taking action in some areas of my life where I've been feeling some dissatisfaction, so there's that as well.

Anyway, just some stuff running through my head on the eve of my birthday. I think I'm going to enjoy my 22nd year.

New year, new me

Happy 2010 everyone!

If you're reading this, then you know 2009 was pretty much the worst year of my life. Suffice it to say I wasn't terribly sad to see it go. ;)

Now I'm going to be a big ol' blog cliche and talk about New Year's resolutions. But keep reading, cause I've been thinking about this for a couple days and it's pretty good.

This week I was at Winter Xtreme in Gatlinburg, TN (aka My Fave Place) with my church's youth group. The Xtreme conference is a youth group event where thousands of kids come together for Christian concerts and speakers. When I was a youth, Xtreme was what I looked forward to all year long - everyone else went nuts about summer camp, but my thing was Xtreme. The music was what really did it for me; I've always worshiped best through music, so it's just been a perfect fit for me. This year I went as a chaperone (scary, isn't it?) and it was the first time I'd gone in about 3 or 4 years. This year was probably the best conference I've attended, and I've been to, I think, 4 of these things. Like I mentioned, this has been a rough year, and I experienced some of the best worship I've had in months over the past 3 days. It's amazing to be in a room with over 6,000 students and their leaders, every single one of them just rocking out, completely uninhibited, praising God in every way imaginable - you see singing, dancing, jumping, hands lifted, tears falling - and the only word to describe it is beautiful. Most of the concerts - if you follow me on Twitter then you know my feelings for Flyleaf, so I say most - were amazing, and I felt as if each speaker's message had been prepared especially for me. Every one of the four speakers (Tony Nolan, Ergun Caner, Matt Pitt and Johnny Hunt) said something I really needed to hear, and I know that was God working through them. I came home feeling like I'd been dying of thirst and finally given a drink of water.

~My first version of this post was extremely wordy, even for me, so I managed to cut it down a LOT. You are welcome.

So, here's my main point: New Year's resolutions. I have several this year, that I came up with during/as a result of the conference. One is to get closer to God. I seriously slacked off on Bible reading and prayer time last year, so this year I will do better. Another is to live more for others: leave off that pride, that self, and focus on being a servant. I'm going to work at looking past the end of my nose and doing all I can to be what others need me to be instead of focusing on what I think they ought to be for me. I resolve to stop obsessing over things that I can't do anything about and trust God to take care of me - along the same lines, if I can do something about it, I will try to take action. I resolve to be bold and speak up when I feel God moving me to do so. And I resolve to take better care of myself overall, physically, mentally and spiritually. I hope that a year from now I will be a different person, and all the changes will be positive ones, and I will be happier and more content and satisfied with my life.

One more thing - if you're reading this I want you to know that I am thankful for you and I pray that God will bless you beyond your wildest dreams this year. I just know 2010 can be amazing!