What was I thinking?!?

Have you ever come across an old photo of yourself? I don't know about you, but usually my first thought is "What was I thinking?!?" Most often it's because of some terrible haircut I had or some atrocious piece of clothing. Remind me to tell you about the time I inadvertently matched my 60 year old substitute teacher...did I mention I was in 7th grade at the time?

That's the simultaneously great and awful thing about photos. They freeze a moment of our history for us to look back and reflect on. Sometimes we even stare in horror at the choices we made, but at the time of the photo, it was a good choice. (Luckily, I've developed a much better fashion sense in the years that followed that tragic 7th grade moment.)

I feel like that's a good comparison for life though. At any stage of our lives, we are making choices and decisions that we are convinced are good. It's only as we get older that we look back at those choices and see that maybe they weren't so great after all.

Sometimes it's tough for me to reconcile my actual age with the way I feel...which is about 18, maybe 22 on a good day. I feel young and energetic and excited for life, just like I did at those ages. The amazing thing is though, I would not go back to being those ages for anything in the world. I look back at the "issues" I had that caused me so much anxiety, realize how silly they were, and am eternally grateful that, for the most part, I don't need to subject myself to that again.

I'm by no means saying that I have life completely figured out. And I'm definitely not saying all those angst ridden moments never occur now. I'm entirely sure in another 10 years (let's not bring up what age I will be then, thank you), I will look back at moments now and wonder what I was thinking with the choices I made.

I guess what I'm saying is that as tough as it is for me to admit I'm 34 (DANG IT! I wasn't going to tell!), I love where I am in life. I can look back at the last 10 years and see what I did well and what I needed to change so that over the next 10 years, I can continue to do those things. And as those changes happen, life gets even better.

My hope is that as we get older, we continue to do just that...make fewer and fewer poor choices and more and more wise ones. If we do, then every year of life we live, we will grow up a little more, grow a little closer to Jesus, and learn a little more about who He created us to be.

What ares of your life can you look back on and see where you've grown?