Tonight, the third decade of my life will quietly come to a close and my journey will continue into the fourth. Often one's transition from their twenties to their thirties can bring about some anxiety. To the sun, the transition in no more than another rising and setting, but to you this is much more than just another day. There was a time in your life when you thought "when I grow up...", but this day brings the realization that you are, and most likely have been, living in the midst of that time.

To say that moving out of your twenties is cause for a mid-life crisis might be a bit of an exaggeration, as this is, hopefully, only the end the first third of your life. With the advance of science and medicine, it could be only the end of the first quarter. Though not cause for crisis, it is an excellent opportunity to reflect and to dream. We can look back on where we have been and look forward to where we want to go.

I recently read that a person often has a vision for their life that reaches out around fifty years. It is not until we hit thirty that that forecast reaches what we might see as our end. Prior to moving into your thirties, everything is possible and time is limitless.

When we are children, the world is our stage. As Americans, we are given the dream that we can be anything we want if we are willing to work hard for it. One day we may announce our desire to become and orphan, as I did, only to realize that we really want to become an elf. We may have dreams of following in our parents footsteps or of taking a completely different path. The future holds all that we desire and nothing can stop us from achieving our dreams.

As a child, I excelled in academics. School required no more effort than that required to expunge my body from my bed. Mornings have never been my favorite part of the day. I remember counting into the hundreds in kindergarden. I recall being a part of an academically gifted group, where I was taught things that other kids were not. From early on, I was labeled as someone with "a lot of potential". This is a phrase that has followed me throughout these first thirty years.

Athletics have played a large role in my life thus far. I remember bringing home a sign-up sheet to play baseball when I was in Mrs. Singletary's first grade class. I remember the first day I went to Walker field and witnessed kids playing football, only to come back the next day with a signed waiver to become a part of the team. The memories I hold of high school sports are some of my most fond. To this day, I am drawn towards the sports arena.

In my experience, when you become involved in a faith community, it is an unavoidable inevitability that at some point you will be asked about your "church background", and whether, or not, you were "brought up in church". My response to these queries is that my family attended church services when we felt like it, but it wasn't often that we felt like it. I believe that there may be more, but the only church I remember visiting was the Tabernacle Baptist Church, which was within walking distance of the house where I spent most of my childhood.

In my early teenage years, there was a week long Methodist church camp that I attended a summers in a row. The memories I have from this church camp have little to do with God. The summer before I entered into the hormone filled world of middle school, while at this camp, I shared my first kiss with a lovely girl, one year my senior, named Alyssa. Other than older girls, there was a lake to swim in, games to play and the food was always pretty good.

In high school I visited yet another church. This time I visited the youth group. Again, my reasons for continuing to return to the youth group, at least in the beginning, had little to do with learning to follow Jesus. It was late in high school that you could say that I "prayed the prayer" or "made a decision" to give my life over to God, but I believe that even at that point, I was not sure what that meant other than I would carry my bible around and continue to attend the church services with the cute girls.

My compulsory education came to a close with all the pomp and circumstance generally afforded to a child raised in a working class family. I said goodbye to the security and comfort of my status in my small home town and small high school, and moved on to a large public university, where nearly everyone has "a lot of potential". It took me a little time to adjust. After a mere two years of underachieving and two years away from the academic world, I realized that potential alone was never going to pay the bills.

My college experience was phenomenal. At the time, it was the best seven years of my life. Within a few hours of setting down my boxes in E113 of Wood Hall, I met two life-long friends. The experience of living on campus while in college is something I believe every student should live through. The friends you make and proximity of events is priceless. One of my fondest memories is watching a basketball game from the sidelines in Reynolds Coliseum. It will forever be one of my top sports experiences. At the and of my Sophomore year, the college journey took a turn to the south, both in my grades and in my locale.

A botched transcontinental road trip and a few bad decisions can put a person in an interesting place. For me, that place was Disney World's doorstep. My two year roller-coaster ride in Central Florida took me from a fun summer job, to being flat broke, to hanging out with millionaire boy-banders, to finding the woman I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. Of these first 30 years, I have spent more than half engaged in some sort of formal schooling, but the education I received during those two years in the working world has been more valuable to me than any of the formal education I obtained.

Working in a couple restaurants, a gas station and a factory has a way of promoting good study habits and hard work. Having a vision for a life spent with someone else also seems to have the same effects. Coming out of my two year hiatus from school, I had both of those things working on me. It seems that seeing the darker side of life without a degree is enough motivation to make even the laziest of people put some of their potential into practice.

As juniors in high school, students, who at times can hardly decide on what to wear for the day, are asked to make one of the most important decisions of their life. The decision they make points them down a path and propels their life on a trajectory towards a career that, with any luck, will turn out to be something they are good at and maybe even something they like. When asked to chose what I wanted to go to college to study, I chose computer engineering almost completely based on two facts: computers are probably going to be around for awhile and people make pretty good money as computer engineers. Seven years later, I graduated from NC State with a degree in computer science, which isn't too far off the mark I aimed for all those years before.

Before graduating from college, I had somehow convinced a lovely, young lady that it would be in the best interests of both of us if she were to marry me and I had acquired a job at what is now listed as the best place to work in America. Shortly after, my wife and I bought our first home and started thinking of adding even more Smiths to the world. So, if being tagged with the "a lot of potential" label means that "if you wanted to, you could achieve the American dream", then... Done.

Life after college is when you start to realize that grown-ups aren't just people your parent's age. I'm not exactly sure when the transition takes place, but at some point you realize that whether you like it, or not, you are a grown-up, too. My wife and I welcomed adulthood. This is what we dreamed of: a house, a couple kids, trips to Home Depot, the whole bit.

When I was in college, those were the best years of my life. However, the last five years have blown those college years out of the water. In the last five years, my family and my faith have taught me to love more deeply than I thought possible.

Through joy and through turmoil, my heart has softened and I have experienced life on levels I never knew existed. I thought I loved my wife before we got married, but I was ignorant. I thought I loved her after we were first married, but still I knew nothing. Now, five years and two kids later, having experienced the wonder, the terror, the awful and the awesome of our life together, I feel like I know love. In the beginning, I didn't know what love could be and I hope that 30 years from now, I can say the same thing about the love I know today.

In high school, I learned about a God that loved me. I made a decision to commit my life to following that God. Though the path I have been on has taken me at times far from what I think God would say is best for me, I still believe that I am following that same God. However, over the past five years, I have come to know that God in a way unlike anything I learned as a teenager.

I no longer believe that the creator of the universe is a genie in a bottle waiting to grant my wish of gaining the favor of a particular girl, getting a good grade on a test, or even healing my sick friend. When I first learned of God's love, I understood love to mean that I would get what I wanted if I wanted it enough and prayed for it enough. I believed God loved me and wanted me to be happy, so long as my happiness resided within the confines of a set of rules that He had put in place. I had decided that I was willing to live within those rules. Thus, I became a Christian.

The past five years have taught me that God's love goes far beyond my happiness and rules. I actually believe now that God's love has little to do with my happiness. Like the parent who refuses to give their child sweets before dinner, God may not give me want I want when I want it because it is not what's best for me.

My faith used to work like a scale. If I did enough of the things that God wanted me to do, I could make Him happy and in His happiness, he would return the favor. Now, my faith operates on a completely different paradigm. Where my good acts in the past were a tool for creating enough worth that I could exchange them for something I wanted or needed, now I see my actions as a method of expressing my gratitude for the things that God has already done.

Over the passed few years I have come to really understand the "good news" of the bible. I've come to recognize a couple things. I accept now that God has an ideal way for me to live my life. I believe that this can, to an extent, be expressed in rules that can be followed externally, but ultimately is about a way of thinking, that then manifests itself in the actions we take. I believe that Jesus was God in the flesh and that He lived here on Earth and was the perfect example of that ideal way of life. I also have come to accept that I have problems and those problems, sometimes known as "the sin in my life", keep me from ever living out this ideal way of life. I am insecure, prideful, selfish, among other things. All of these things are internal issues, but they get lived out in various ways that effect everyone around me.

John 3:16 may be the most recognized verse in the entire bible. Over these past few years, my understanding of this verse has gained more depth. I said I believe that Jesus was an example of the ideal and that I cannot live up to that ideal. John 3:16 tells me that despite my inability to live up to the ideal that God has set, He still loves me. That even though I am screwed up, God still loves me. He loves me so much that Jesus, who came here and lived that ideal life, died, was buried in a tomb and three days later overcame death to make up for how screwed up I am. And, that is what I see as grace.

Grace is my motivator. I no longer do things to get God to love me. I do things because God loves me. I try to live the ideal life that God has prescribed. I try to see people the way God sees them. I try to respond with love, peace, patience and kindness. And, I fail everyday. I fail, but I pick myself up and I start all over. I know that I may never be perfect. I may never come close to that ideal, but that doesn't stop me from trying.

If look back over the last thirty years, I see an amazing path that I have walked. There have been the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. I am thankful not only for the place I am now, but for the journey that brought me here. As this decade of my life comes to a close, I can't help but dream of what the next decade, or even the next thirty years, might bring.

I dream of being a great husband, a great father, a great man.

I hope to continually learn more about my wife and to push her to be the wife, mother and woman God has made her to be. I pray that I will be the husband that she needs, but also the husband that she deserves. I pray that we both live to age where we can be the old couple who can barely walk, but still holds hands. I look forward to the joys and troubles that both bring us closer together.

I have many dreams for our children, but I hope that my dreams for them do not overshadow the dreams they will create for themselves. I pray that I will be an example to them of the God that I have come to love. That they would one day also come to love Him. I have a dream of taking a road trip across the country with just Palmer and I where we camp the entire time we are gone. I have dreams of Presley's heart breaking for the kids of another country as the two of us do work overseas. I pray that all of our children come to see themselves and all other people as God sees them.

As a man, I have a lot of work to do. Though I know that I am an adult, I still feel young and imature. I hope to tame my tongue and to one day be more like my dad who rarely raised his voice, but commanded respect, though he never asked for it verbally. I also dream of the day when my vocation is to teach people about the God I love and to help them find ways to participate in bringing redemption to all things. Above all I pray that in all areas of life I will represent the ways of Jesus in a way that glorifies him.

Thank you to God, my family, my friends and everyone else who has played a role in these first thirty years.

Labels: family, Jesus, life