When my husband Brennan was growing up here in Oklahoma City, he claimed he virtually lived at his best friend’s house. He told me all about late nights playing ping pong, swimming in their pool, destroying each other in basketball, and taking plenty of sodas from the refrigerator. Sure enough, when I started dating Brennan, I was also welcomed into that home with the same open arms.
As she peered up at me, her little eyes unfocused and strained, I smiled. Her tiny fists pressed tightly to her chest as she adjusted to the intrusive, outside world I had known for some limited 25 years. My arms more than gathered her tiny body to my chest. My very own niece… miss Tobi Faye. My sister, Jess, had labored and waited for hours for this baby girl to come into the world, and had further more labored and waited for years to become a mom.
Amy Carmichael, unmarried her whole life, raised hundreds of children as her own. Sherri Hanzel, with five kids in tow, crossed oceans to spread the Gospel in a Muslim country. Gladys Aylward, with little to nothing on her back, led a village of children across communist lands to safety. Susannah Spurgeon, ill and unable to leave her own bed, began and managed a pastors’ resource ministry…
I turn 30 next month, which feels like a big deal—the end of a decade! I have been thinking about what it has been like being single through these incredible, weird, formative (and at times flailing) years in my 20s. My guess is that if someone who spent most of their 20s embarking on marriage and/or parenthood was reflecting on that same decade, we’d use many of the same adjectives of beautiful, painful, full of life and loss and adventure and growing pains.
Growing up in Uganda, Christmas was always a big deal. I was constantly surrounded by both close and extended family during this time. We would swap stories from the year, go to church together and eat lots of good food. However, I never realized the importance and value of being surrounded by family during the Christmas season until I moved to this country for college.
