Revelry, Retrospect, Resolve

So I had my thirtieth birthday party on Friday (a little premature, but that's okay, 'cause there really wasn't another time to have it)... One of the most wonderful nights of my life.

I can't begin to describe the overwhelming joy that I felt by the time everyone left and I headed to bed (around 3:30 AM!). So many surprises, so many beautiful people, so much love in the room. What a treat to have a friend from elementary school show up on my doorstep unannounced, and another friend who traveled from Richmond just to see me. Harvest was well-represented, and I'm so thankful for the many new friends I've made at McLean Pres. My sister Amy and her husband Brian came down from Ohio for the weekend, so we had a serious family affair with the "three little ones" as we have been dubbed by our parents. It was a grand convergence of the different worlds of Andrew. To quote Galinda, "I couldn't be happier!"

I'm still riding this wave of happiness, and thus looking very forward my parents visit this coming weekend, arriving Thursday for my actual birthday. My dad and I are planning an historic coastal Virginia excursion, and I'm pumped. Mom should be able to have some good shopping time with Sarah, and then, of course, Sunday will be church and then they'll be off. But in spite of the brevity, I'm thrilled that I am able to spend this "milestone" if you will with my family, and especially to have some serious quality time with my dad.

Adding to the excitement of last weekend, I had the opportunity to conduct the church choir for services on Sunday as our director was out of town. Not only did she give me the anthem with all kinds of mixed meter, but the choir performed an introit that I composed! Ironically, it's first public performance came almost exactly ten years from it's first draft back in '97 when I was still an undergrad. Now that's a pretty swell birthday present, if I do say so myself....


Beyond the merriment of natal celebrations, I think I'm coming to terms with the looming thirtieth anniversary of my birth. I'm embracing it. One friend said to me, "Welcome to life with retrospect." And that, I think, has to be one of the more profound statements on reaching thirty that I've ever heard. Indeed, it's as if I'm suddenly able to see through the past rather than dwell in it. Now, I'm sure that I'll have lapses of regret, given my tendencies toward a melancholic dispostion, but I am altogether resolved to "forget those things which are behind, and press toward the mark." I've grown tired of my fear, my passivity, my pathetic evasion of reality and of life. My past does not define me, and I can move beyond all of that to enjoy a life that is rich, resolved, and renewed.

I've a full heart. And there you have it.