twenty four

24. 

24 has always been my favorite number.

it’s the number of hours in a day.

it was my softball number.

it’s the number of elders crowned in the throne room of god in the book of revelation.

it’s the day i was born.

and it’s a super cool math number.

and eventually one day i would turn 24 and it would be magical.

 

growing up, i had ideas of what 24 would be.

and where i would be.

i was going to get married at 24.

have a big kid job.

definitely live in america.

 

i often thought about 24, but never past it.

i just knew that one day, i’d be 24, and that was basically as far as my mind went.

and that been that way til now.

 

yesterday i turned 24.

i live in cambodia.

i have no real thing you’d call an actual job.

and as far as i can tell, i’m getting married no time in the near future. 

 

but let me tell you about my birthday.

 

i woke up under my bright pink mosquito net around 6:30 like i do every morning.

i had prayed the night before that no one would remember my birthday (silly, i know), 

but i wanted the love of the lord and the fact that he knew to be enough.

i really wanted to count on and trust him to make it sweet on his own.

so i made sure not to tell or remind anybody.

well, one by one, the girls on my team woke up, and all wished me happy birthdays and gave me cards by like 7:00. that didn’t work 😛

but the lord had sweeter ways 🙂 

 

it was my day to go to the market to buy breakfast for the team. amber and marylou told me, “you’re off this morning! we’ve got breakfast covered!” so i just got to hang out with jesus and let them go to the market. during that time, some of my girls prayed and sang over me, just because jesus.

 

when they got back from the market, they had fried bananas and rice pancakes for breakfast (some of my favorites!) and had brought me peas!!!!! which i am just weird and love. and iced coffee in a bag, which literally is the greatest thing ever here!! they covered a spot for me at the table in paper confetti, and right as we were about to eat, haley smiles and slams a giant jar of nutella on the table in front of me that she has been waiting to break out since we’ve been here. if you’ve never lived in a foreign country and ate nothing but rice for months and don’t quite understand this…trust me when i say it’s a big deal.

 

then i had my morning english class. in that class, i have 5 girls and 5 boys, all 12ish years old. they are precious and all sang happy birthday to me. during mid-class break, i was playing soccer with some of them, when a big baby powder / asian face whitening cream fight broke out. so that was a solid half hour of running around getting baby powder and whitening cream smeared on my face, in my hair, and, basically everywhere else, while hearing so many cute little, “i love yous” and “happy birthday, teacha”s. after that class, one of my (am i allowed to have favorites?) students told me and casey who i teach with, and our translator, that he was really excited to come here to learn, because not only does he get to learn english, but he gets to learn about god. he told us he wanted to know more about god and that he wants to trust in him. then he asked us to pray for him and said he wanted a bible, so we got to give him one!!!! this was a super sweet, super happy part of the day.

 

after class, marylou, amber, and casey all went on a run with me. (runs here are the beautifullest.) (and hottest.) so then kate, petra, our translator brother, and to, one of our little brothers, jumped in the pond with me and we swam and played until lunch and it was so fun. running and swimming are some of my favorite things 🙂 

 

we ate rice for lunch and we had team time. i didn’t have class in the afternoon, and neither did marylou, so she told me we were gonna have a reverse one on one, so she could ask me questions, instead of the other way around. she bought (more) (30 cent) iced coffee, and we hammocked in the palm trees and talked. it was a sweet time. 

 

after that, we had more team time, and then evening class. my evening class is about 20 students who are in the 15-17 age range. they are so fun. they also sang to me and made me feel really special. both classes i teach, my brother petra, translates, so we are together a lot, and have gotten to know each other well, and become really close. he knows i love taylor swift, so after class, he got out his guitar, and played and we sang together. we ate rice for dinner, and then our oldest brother, sophea, announced that our evening bible study / worship night that that we do each night would include a game tonight and that we had 15 minutes to dress up as crazy as we could. obviously i love that kind of stuff, so i got as crazy as i could with my limited wardrobe. my co-leader, kayla, pretended we had to have some serious talk, but it turned out she was just stalling me.

 

we got to the church, and my whole team, my 20 something cambodian brothers, and even some of my students, surprised me with silly string, sparklers, balloons, and confetti! (so many things i didn’t even know cambodia had!) they all wrote me notes and surprised me with my favorite market treats and there was even a cake and it had khmer on it and they sang happy birthday and we had a cake fight!!!! AND THEN we all had a huge taylor swift dance party 😀 it was seriously magical. 

 

i couldn’t stop smiling and i couldn’t believe how well jesus loved me. all day long. i had just asked for an intimate day of his love, but never imagined it looking like this. i was totally excited to pray with him all day and just to let him speak love over me. but he wanted to do that and so much more. he wanted to love me with every person, every moment, every circumstance, every thing that he has created me to find joy in.

 

so my life right now at 24 looks nothing like i ever thought it would. 

but that’s because what it does look like is so much better.

just like his plans for my yesterday were,

his plans for my 24 and my future and life are so much fuller.

yes, he wants to love me, and you, with his whole heart in ample alone time with him,

but he also wants to love us so sweetly through every little thing we love, like runs and dance parties and packaged peas. 

he longs to be with us and to speak to us when we sit quietly with him, yes,

but he also just wants to have fun with us, and to surprise us, and to delight us in him through the little things.

 

i know nothing about my life from this point on.

other than what he has said.

but i am so excited to walk into it with joy,

knowing that he wants to play and dance with me along the way,

and that he is the best lover a girl could ever ask for.

 

thank you, jesus,

amen.