National Quemoy University, Kinmen Island, Taiwan
 
It is my birthday and I have only fully realized it because I wrote out the date just now. I am 32 years old and the past two weeks have been some of the most eye opening to my life that I've ever had. I am realizing that I am exactly what I never thought I would be – a successful, childless workaholic. I know I constantly worry about not doing something with my life and about having to give up my interests to have kids. But it has literally never crossed my mind what my life looks like to the outside world until this month.
 
It started during a phone conversation with my mom. She asked me if we were trying to get pregnant and I was floored. I assumed that would just be obvious to everyone since I am turning 32. Even my mom didn't think it was an obvious thing.
 
Then I actually heard myself speaking in some of my conversations with people – I was preparing to travel internationally for my job while also finishing up my school semester while considering applying to Harvard while publishing a paper while joining staff at a church. While living in the third most expensive city in the United States. I've been so focused on figuring out how to not lose my goals that I have been totally blind to my success in them and again, how I must look to the people around me. I have been addicted to success and work. I also have been legitimately trying to figure out how I am supposed to use my gifts and talents.
 
Right now I have a choice before me – I cannot use all of my gifts and talents to their full extent without burning myself out. I cannot have a family while using all of my gifts and talents. So which ones will I use? I am 32 years old, have been working like a mad woman for four years, and am burnt out. It is time that I get my shit in order and stop trying to do it all and instead focus on how to live while using the gifts I care about the most and have the most peace about.
 
I grew up hearing yuppies referred to in only negative terms. Good Christians had children early and valued their families more than anything else. I have had no paradigm for seeing myself as a thirty-something, successful urbanite because I was trying very very hard to not be selfish in my decisions and I grew up thinking that yuppies were simply the result of selfish, immature motivations. I constantly heard yuppies referred to as the result of never being willing to grow up and be an adult, and I have tried very hard to work against that.
 
And yet, here I am. The very definition of a childless thirty-something-year-old woman who is doing well in her work. I am more the product of my society than I could ever have imagined myself being. I couldn't have imagined it because I never thought I valued the things yuppies value. But I do. And I do not think it is evil. I think it is cultural. And a result of trying really hard to use what's been given to me for God’s glory.
 
I don't even know what I am trying to say with all of this other than I just am at this totally bizarre place in life in which I both know where I want to go and believe I have the talents to do it (if I let go of certain other things that I've held on to), and I can completely recognize that I am not the person I thought I was. In other words, I feel like I am waking up to who I am and I am becoming more aware of my abilities. I guess what's really going on is that my vision is focusing. So much of the excess work, of the excess baggage, of the excess stress needs to fall away. I don't need to stay in this whirlpool. I know what I want - my husband, my children, to teach and write, and community ministry. The rest has to go. And that can be the value of finding myself where I am at 32 – the focus that I haven't been able to find until this point.

​(Image by Nicolette Tomas.)

At Home, Arlington, Massachusetts
 
“The opposite of the ‘One Child Policy’ is not the ‘Two Child Policy,’ but ‘Free to Birth.’ When I think about it more deeply, we are no more better than our parents when celebrating the replacement of the ‘one child policy’ with the ‘Two Child Policy.’ We may not be affected by the national policy, we may have more choice to deal with it (many of our friends went abroad to bear their second child), but we are deeply affected by the values of the world — parenthood should not degrade my living standards, my financial standards, or my standards of freedom — because we are still afraid of losing comfort, pleasure, or something that gives us identity. We are still making the choice in the fear.”
 
I'm editing J.’s blog post for the CP on China's switch to the two-child policy and am incredibly convicted. He basically just tells stories from life about the policy, but he ends by discussing the way Chinese don't care about it anymore because no one wants to have kids anyways. His words above are as equally applicable to me in the West as they are to the Chinese.

​Lord, forgive me. I am making my decisions out of fear. I am no better. I am afraid of giving up my comfort, my financial security, my time, my independence. But parenthood isn't a degradation of these things and we shouldn't see it that way. I shouldn't see it that way. Please God, forgive me, and change my heart. Help me to see the beauty there is in your world, in the way you made me, in parenthood. Please help me to be more compelled by your design and your definitions of beauty than those which the world tells me are beautiful. Amen.

At Home, Arlington, Massachusetts
 
I wrote the following for my Jonathan Edwards class and I want to remember it here.
 
“‘Being sensible that I am unable to do anything without God’s help, I do humbly entreat him by his grace to enable me to keep these resolutions, so far as they are agreeable to his will, for Christ’s sake.’ With these words from Jonathan Edwards as a reminder of my complete dependence on Christ to attain not only my salvation, but also sanctification, I list here a set of twenty-five resolutions. May these resolutions work for my spiritual benefit, and may I avoid creating a law unto myself; for the law ultimately can do no good for my eternal state, apart from the power of the Holy Spirit in me to regenerate and renew my will to live for Christ.
 

1. I resolve to live only unto Christ, focusing the eyes of my heart upon him.
2. I resolve to continue to evaluate and seek God’s calling in my life, working to increase in my ability to obey when and as he leads.
3. I resolve to live out of faith, rather than fear, as I seek and determine God’s call on my life.
4. I resolve to carefully heed words of wisdom from others concerning calling and giftedness, and I resolve not to be unduly swayed by those who are unwise. I resolve to grow in seeking the Lord’s wisdom first, and in my ability to determine what advice is wise and what advice is folly.
5. I resolve to stop listening to my insecurities concerning God’s gifts in my life and to grow in faith in God’s abundant blessing to me as one of his children.
6. I resolve to pursue good work, particularly work in which I sense the Lord’s delight upon me as I use my abilities to accomplish what he has equipped me to do.
7. I resolve to work hard, without complaining or bitterness, and finding joy in the work my hands do.
8. I resolve to be a good steward and to consider seriously throughout my lifetime that which God has given to my care.
9. I resolve to steward the material goods God has given me so that they may not go to waste.
10. I resolve to steward the material goods God has given me in order not to hoard possessions.
11. I resolve to steward the body God has given me, taking care of what I eat and how I exercise so that I do not live a dichotomized life, caring greatly for my soul but neglecting my body. Rather I resolve to glorify God and make use of his gifts to me, unified in body and spirit.
12. I resolve to honor my parents, seeking and learning what this means as an adult, so that peace in my family and heart might abound.
13. I resolve to honor my husband, delight in him, and follow his guidance.
14. I resolve to guard my tongue and speak only in love.
15. I resolve to speak encouraging words to others and avoid a complaining mode of speech.
16. I resolve to guard my heart, working to maintain and foster joy, rather than being given over to its whims.
17. I resolve to pray for joy and seek the Spirit to grow this fruit in my life.
18. I resolve to share my joy with others when it is found, particularly my husband, rather than keeping it quiet to myself.
19. I resolve to share in others’ joys, not only their sorrows, and to grow in my ability to celebrate with others in the good gifts God has given them.
20. I resolve to lay aside all jealousy and envy, delighting in what God gives others.
21. I resolve to reflect upon God’s kindnesses to me when jealousies do arise, and to celebrate the love he has given me.
22. I resolve to grow in forgiveness and charitableness when others have hurt me.
23. I resolve to maintain friendships, working to restore what has been damaged.
24. I resolve to lay aside petty judgments of others and learn to delight in differences.
25. I resolve to value scripture highly and to soak my life in its light and truth.”