far as the East is from the West

Today is my 22nd birthday!!

In my first two years of my twenties, I have noticed that it is a strange time for those my age. Some of us are graduating college, some are having children, some are getting married, some still live with their parents.

Each person is on their own journey and the worst thing to do for yourself is to compare your life to a peers. You are a completely different person than them, although you may have some similarities you are not them and they are not you.

You may be like me and feel that when you hit 22, you need to have already accomplished solving the world’s most important question – what is my purpose in life? 22 is young, but I have this desire to want to know my purpose. I think that regardless of the age of someone they are still discovering their purpose with each passing day at 83 or 3. Your purpose in life changes and develops over time. It becomes more refined as you start to understand the world more and more.

Here are a few things I absolutely know to be my purpose thus far: to know God & have an intimate relationship with Him, to live a healthy life, and to have flourishing relationships with those around me.

As I think more and more, my one true purpose is to not only know God but choose to have a relationship with Him, with the Creator if the world. It may be the most simplest thing but our purpose stems from that. You may have a purpose to develop your career further or to become a mother/father, but ultimately everything stems from having a relationship with God.

Now does having a relationship with God mean that everything is all rainbows and butterflies? No. Think about the greatest relationship that you have in your life right now, it may be between a parent, friend, significant other. None of those relationships are without tension, same as your relationship with God. You may feel him calling you to step out in this way or to leave a relationship or to make a really hard decision and all of these things have created some tension between you and God. You can choose to overcome that tension and to work together with God or you can walk away. Same thing goes with any other relationship you have, you can talk and push through tension – refine the relationship or walk away.

I want to choose the latter.

In this next year of life, it will be full of changes with the greatest being I will be getting married in September. I want to refine my purpose but only if I am doing it with God.

What is your purpose in life?

Hannah