Wow. Here I am. Ending my Jesus year. On to 34.
“Jesus year,” you may ask? Huh? I remember the first time I heard that. Jesus himself only lived to his 33rd year, and wow, what a year it was for him. I am now OLDER than the most important person in my life ever was.
My husband also will be going through this same exact situation when he turns 42 in March as his own father never made it to his 42nd birthday.
There are times & moments in life where we all feel invincible – like, NOTHING could touch us.
And then, there are other times when we feel so thankful to be alive because we know how precious life is.
I remember, upon turning 30, how so many asked me how I was feeling about leaving my 20s behind. Honestly, I was ecstatic. I had an amazing time in my 20s, but they were FULL of trials too. I followed a lot of dreams and became a totally different person – inside and out – from my early 20s to late 20s.
Now, venturing into my mid-30s, I’ve never been so in love with my life.
My 30s haven’t been absent of trials, however. If anything, the trials I have faced during my 30s, make the ones in my 20s look so small and simple. In my 30s, I’ve become a wife, step mom, gave birth to an amazing son at home, immigrated countries, became bilingual and maintained a 100 pound weight loss…just to name a few.
But, they paved the path for me to ride the waves of the ones I’ve experienced now in my third decade. I LOVE that about trials. If you lean into them, and fully surrender, you can come out of them stronger, wiser and BETTER.
That is what I want for my 34th year. In my 33rd year, I lived through more restrictions because of a worldwide pandemic, navigated a challenging court battle for my stepdaughter, let go dreams of moving to the States this year, became a full-time entrepreneur with my husband, experienced a miscarriage and survived Co-Vid.
If that doesn’t launch me into my 34th year of with hope & expectation, I don’t know what does!
I look back on my 33rd year of life and feel like it broke me down, only to build me back up.
It showed me that I no longer needed to “muscle through things on my own.” Throughout all my trials, I got experience new sides of God’s character. I got to fully rely on my husband and see more of his personality that is so uniquely suited for me. For better or for worse, he has stood by me and allowed my soul to flourish in the pain.
34. I see you.
I am excited for you. And I know, my best, and my family’s best, is yet to come.
-Cheyanne Lent Cleyman
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