In This 23rd Beautiful Year

I just had my 23rd birthday. College graduation is in two days. Whenever I imagined these days coming, I assumed there would be a man with me through it all. My mom had me when she was 23. My older sister got married when she was 23. It made sense to me that there would be someone in my life when I was 23, someone who held some small hope or promise for the future.

Thinking along those lines always made my future seem more secure. I lived a normal, straightforward life up until I left for college: stable home life, Catholic grade school, Catholic high school, worked part time at the family business. I was heading off to the same Catholic college that my older siblings attended. It only seemed natural that I would find a nice Catholic boy and settle down. Wouldn't that be nice?

I think even then, in a small corner of my heart, I heard God chuckling at my plans.

I feared that chuckle, that other path He was planning for my life. I let satan's lies make me feel insecure about my relationship status, even with my family. I thought there must be something wrong with me since I had never brought a boy home to meet the fam. It wasn't until recently, when God reminded me that I am His, first and forever, I realized that as much as I admire them and wish to be like them, I am not my mom or my sister.

I am me.

I think that was the moment I realized I have no idea who I am. I always focused so much on what I wanted and what I didn't have that I didn't take the opportunity to enjoy what I do have. God has made me uniquely beautiful and He has a specific purpose for me, for my life, for my heart. He has much greater plans than I had for myself. Not to say that they are greater plans than those He has for my mom and my sister--they're just different.

Now I am about to graduate, single, unattached, free as a little bird. I can fly wherever the wind takes me and wherever God wants me.

Ah! what joy and peace!