On Turning 27

The stories that have shaped my life and taught me how to follow God.

Eleven days have passed since my 27^th birthday, a fact that still hasn’t fully actualized in my mind. First of all, 27 seems too old. It’s surreal to stop and think that I’ve been alive that long. I told my mother the other day that I feel like I have lived at least three separate lifetimes… and yet, I feel like a 17 year old trapped in a 27-year-old’s body. I’ve taken this occasion of my birth memorial to reflect on all that has transpired during my life so far on this planet, and to consider what it is that has made me what I am today, and what that really means. This is the story of how God shaped my life and taught me how to understand His will -- an adventure that has taken me from the fields of the Midwest to the Eastern lands of Korea.

Life 1: The Fairytale

Life on a dairy farm…

There was the life that I lived before my earliest memories… maybe from birth until about age 3. After that, there was the time from my first memories in which I lived on a dairy farm with my stay-at-home mother who would do arts and crafts with me and my sister, and hard-working father who pushed us around in the feeding cart full of corn as he did the farm work. Back then, life was truly fairytale-like. It was about playing and discovering the world. No worries. No fear of danger. I remember the day I first discovered the power of electricity upon touching the electric cow fence that my father had warned me about. I remember being both shocked and intrigued… touching the fence over and over and feeling the bolts of energy surging through my bones and leaving a metal taste in my mouth. I have no idea how I am still alive, to be quite honest.

Driving trains…

Then, there were the vague years between 4 and 8. Highlights of this period included moving to the city when the dairy industry was at a low and my father had to take a job as a train engineer (which he ended up loving). Some of my fondest memories are those of sitting on the floor of a greasy train engine or on my father’s lap in front of a wall of buttons. I remember pushing the big red button – the horn – whenever we crossed the train tracks. The people waiting impatiently in their cars must have been rather alarmed to see a 5-year-old stick her chubby little hand out of the engineer’s window and wave as the train passed. On the trips that my father didn’t bring me along with him on, I remember my mother packing me and my other (now 3) siblings up into our minivan and driving us to Steven’s Point where my father would have layovers in a Best Western hotels and our whole family would go swimming together in the hotel pool.

Kindergarten episodes….

I.                    I remember most sharply the day I entered kindergarten. From the start, I was a perfectionist. I wanted to be the best and went after the straight flush of aces with everything I had. Sometimes my perfectionism got out of hand. I remember sitting at the test table one time. I had erased and re-written my “C” letter at least 10 times in an attempt to make it as perfect as the printed one in the example. But my hand was far too shaky and, after a few more tries, I had made a small hole in my test from erasing it so many times. When this happened, my eyes grew wide, and I let out a loud shriek in my alarm and frustration. Instantly, I slapped a hand over my mouth and glanced over at my teacher who had snapped her head up and was giving me a hard look over her glasses. This was followed by a harsh scolding. It was in kindergarten when I first learned one of life’s hardest lessons – that life isn’t fair. I have always hated that saying, actually. To me it always just seemed like the thing someone would say to you when they didn’t have a real answer to what you were going through. When I’m upset about something I don’t want to hear that life isn’t fair I want to be empathized with. [End rant]

II.                  I was playing tag at lunch one day with my kindergarten colleagues and there was this one really fast boy. I hated him, because in my quest to be the best, I could never run as fast as him. Hence, I could never catch him during tag. On this particular day, I decided to get inventive. I looked down at my hand in which I held a vanilla cream cookie: it was the answer. I chased after Joseph and, after getting close enough, wound up and hit him square in the back with the cookie. “Ha-ha!” I yelled triumphantly. “Got you! You’re out!” Joseph was not happy. He even went so far as to report my actions to the principal (which I felt was totally blowing the situation out of proportion. It was just a game, after all. But not to Joseph, apparently). We were both sent to the principal’s office in the end. There went my perfect record. All because of a stupid cookie.

III.                I remember another time in kindergarten when we were all told to line up quietly before walking down to our classroom after finishing break. Wanting to be nice, I whispered to the new girl behind me that she could go in front of me. My teacher saw that I was talking and promptly awarded me my first demerit – for not following instructions to be quiet. I was devastated. Punished for doing something kind. I hid the demerit at the school and did not show it to my mother to get it signed and returned like I was supposed to. But then, the next morning when my mother dropped me off at school, I realized that I couldn’t return to class without the note, and, overcome with guilt, went and got the demerit slip and showed it to my mom, already sobbing as I explained the situation and expecting her to be disappointed in me. These demerit notes recommended that the parent punish the child at home for their infringement. I remember how my mom listened to my story, took one look at the note and threw her head back in laughter before signing the note. She had found the situation to be just as ridiculous as I had and assured me I wouldn’t be punished. This formed a new level of trust between my mother and I that I would carry with me through the years. My mom knew me deeper than my teachers did. She understood me better than anyone else in the world.

“I was homeschooled…”

My parents decided to homeschool me and my siblings after kindergarten. I sort of resented this growing up because of all the missed opportunities for recognition. Who would I compare my academic achievements to? When you are a class of one, it’s hard for others to see that you stand out for your hard work. It’s just you. I didn’t, however, consider the fact that often times while my friends back at school were sitting in a classroom under the strict watch of their teachers, I was often baking cookies or tramping through the forest in our backyard because I had finished my work early. Or the fact that I got to see my family at least 50% more often than kids in traditional school did. Or the fact that my family could take vacations virtually any time we wanted for want of school calendar restrictions. People would often ask me when I’d be out running errands with my mom, “shouldn’t you be in school right now?” “Nah,” I’d reply. “I’m home-schooled!” And then bound off to find my mom in the produce section.

Back to farm life...

Life was still pretty perfect by the time I turned 8 and our family had decided to move back out to the country and settle on an old farm-ette which had multiple old buildings to explore and tons of land to traverse. My siblings and I took many an adventure through grass that grew over our heads and into the hay mazes we built in the barn. We fastened our three Labradors to a toboggan and mushed them across corn fields in the winter. Once, when I was walking alone, I nearly tripped over a new-born baby fawn. I remember looking at it in awe and watching its belly slowing moving up and down as it slept, calmly awaiting the return of its mother who had likely gone off to find food.  The temptation to scoop up the baby fawn and take it home with me was strong, but I knew it needed to be with its mother and so I continued on my way, reluctantly leaving the helpless little creature behind me.

Life 2: Big, Bad Public School

What it was really like…

When I became a sophomore in high school, my parents finally relented to letting me take some classes part time at the local public high school. This was a new world for me. I had heard so many things about the “big, bad, public school” from parents of my friends in our conservative homeschooling circle and within our church. According to them, I’d have to battle hundreds of new temptations and poor influences: ‘drugs, swearing, and boys who had only one thing on their minds’. And, ‘it would be a miracle if I made it out of there after three years without being entirely corrupted’. It was really only my mother’s lack of confidence in her ability to properly educate us in higher level math and sciences that me and my siblings were allowed to enter the allegedly dark and dangerous world of public high school when we came of age. Having heard all the rumors, you can imagine I entered high school rather timidly and out of my element, albeit with wide-eyed curiosity and the wildest determination for success.

That “Amish” girl…

High school really wasn’t all that bad. Sure, the kids were immature and many of them had potty-mouths, and some of them made out with each other in the hallways, but I was able to easily spot which crowds to avoid and round up a few decent friends. Having never attended a real school other than my brief and limited experience at a private school in kindergarten, high school life was not without its awkward moments. I struggled my entire sophomore year to open the lock on my locker and eventually defaulted to carrying all of my books in my backpack so that I didn’t have to go through the embarrassment of asking a friend to open it for me all the time. After a while of attending the school, I later found out that some of the students had thought I came from an Amish family. They didn’t quite grasp the concept of being homeschooled, but many of them drooled when I told them how late I used to wake up in the morning. I became somewhat of a novelty at the school after suddenly appearing that first day of sophomore year out of nowhere, and the same semester, entering and winning first place in the school talent show after a crowd-pleasing fiddle performance on my violin. I even made the school paper. Shortly after this, a boy introduced himself to me and later started walking me to my classes. I later found out that he was vice-president of the school council, second-ranking in academics, and consequently one of the most popular guys in school, not to mention ha-andsome! We remained close friends throughout our high school years and many people thought we were a couple, even though we never were.

Making friends…

My other close friend that I met at the public high school was the starting goalie on the school’s soccer team. She was one of the first people to accept me into her circle of jock friends at the school. We had a lot of good times together. This one time in geometry class, I threw an eraser at the back of her head (I don’t remember why… was probably paying her back for some trick she played on me earlier). She looked back at me and dramatically fell to the floor and made a big scene of it, of course, so that class had to be stopped. When our teacher asked my friend why she was on the floor, she sat up and pointed at me. “Eden threw an eraser at my head!” Our teacher did not buy it for a minute. “You’re crazy, Dolly. Eden is a perfectly behaved student and would never do such a thing.” The rest of the class, of course, erupted in snickers as Dolly shook her head and glared back at me with a look that said I was a brat. Hey, life isn’t always fair, right?

Life 3: The Storm

Sometimes life gives you lemons… and those lemons are really sour…

The storm hit and the fairy-tale turned a little dark when I turned 18 and my father was suddenly diagnosed with a brain tumor. My life was turned upside-down. Just like everyone in this kind of situation always says, I couldn’t believe that something like this could actually happen to me. I’d never experienced this kind of tragedy in my life before… closest thing to it had been when my grandpa passed away, but that was sort of expected, right? People’s grandparents pass when you are growing up, it is common. Losing your father at 18 is not. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever gone through. For days I was silent. Turned off my phone and didn’t talk to anyone. I was like one of the walking dead. But after the funeral and the initial shock began to wear off, healing began to take place in my life. I experienced God’s grace during that time in my life in a way that was deeper than anything I’d ever experienced before. I knew with certainty that I was going to be okay. I knew that those strong arms were holding me and that they would help me through this, no matter how hard. And they did. Though I missed my dad, I never felt abandoned. Though I didn’t understand the why, I came out stronger because of it in the end.

College and the quest to discover God’s will…

The first two years of college were not what I expected. Fun, but not what I expected. I ended up going to a small Christian college. Growing up, I used to imagine myself at Harvard, but that dream became less important as I had neared the end of high school. The biggest problem was that I had firmly believed God would reveal to me exactly which college He wanted me to attend by my high school graduation. When He didn’t, I was lost and clueless. It wasn’t until later that I realized I had a skewed view of what it meant to “follow God’s will”. It doesn’t always mean that God is going to tell you a specific name of a school and a location in which you are to attend. It doesn’t mean he’s going to wake you up in your sleep and say in a booming voice, “Go to Maranatha Baptist Bible College”. God has given each of us talents and desires planted deep within our hearts. Those things are guides which we should use to follow God’s will. I believe there is actually far more freedom within “God’s will” than we are often led to believe. God’s will is actually quite simple: to love Him and to love others. To serve Him with all of our hearts (Matthew 22:38). Within the specific way God made us and the varying spiritual gifts we have, there are plenteous paths we can choose to take. It was a long journey, but for me, I realized that nothing brings me more satisfaction than finishing a good piece of writing. After two years of questioning God’s will for me at my first college, I finally transferred to Liberty University and started my new life as an English major. Little steps along the way led me to become interested in teaching English as a second language because it was an all-encompassing win-win-win for me: use my degree to make a living, experience another culture, and receive the opportunity to invest in the lives of others!

Got a degree… and a plan!...

By the time I graduated university, I didn’t have a 4.0, but I did have a bag full of life experiences and memories I wouldn’t trade for a thing. I had two years as a competitive snowboarder and a 4^th place national title, an award for club sports accomplishment of the year, my first published poem, composing my first musical piece and having it set to lyrics, making a professional music video which intertwined my two passions of snowboarding and playing violin, and having the opportunity to be assistant concert master of the university’s symphony orchestra among hundreds of other things! Best of all, when I graduated, I knew where God was taking me, to a place I never imagined I’d be going, South Korea.

Life Now: Abroad in the ‘Real World’

What became of my fears…

Nearly two years in South Korea and I know (partially) a new language and a new culture. Two years of living in the real world, and I still feel as limitless as an eagle. Things that used to scare me don’t anymore. When I was a little girl, my mother used to tease me because I was a picky eater. She’d say, “How are you going to be a missionary one day and go to a country where they eat bugs if you can’t even eat your green beans?” [Side note: Funny enough, even though Korea is becoming more westernized by the day, they do eat bugs here as a side dish quite often]. I pass on the bugs, but have found plenty of other things to eat. Another thing I used to fear with a burning terror was spiders. At summer camp as a middle schooler I was once shunned by my camp counselor because I was too afraid to kill the daddy long-legs crawling on the canvas tipi-ceiling that loomed over my bed by myself. I always begged my cousin to do that. But one day, my counselor stopped my cousin and told her to leave the bug, thinking she was teaching me some sort of life lesson. I resented her for it. Today, I am proud to say that if there’s a spider in my apartment that needs killing, it might freak me out a little, but I can manage it. Might use a long broom, but I can do it. Ha-ha. As I prepared to come overseas in my final semesters of college I had many fears about my ability to stand in front of a class every day and teach. Turns out it’s not so hard. The teaching isn’t the hard part, it’s the classroom management that’s hard. The trying to answer five students’ questions at once while keeping another two from breaking into a fist fight and yet another from having a breakdown all before my boss happens to see that my classroom is a wreck that is the trick. But I manage, and I am definitely stronger because of these challenges. Not only have I become a confident teacher, but my work schedule has allowed me ample time to develop my writing. There’s even a local English magazine that accepts my work. In addition, my unique position as a foreigner who can play the violin well has afforded me many special guest musician invitations. I’ve discovered I can cook!  I’ve been a guest on a radio show. I’ve seen the eastern horizon. I’ve met people who have taught me so much here about life and hospitality and pursuing God.

The conclusion of the matter…

All of these things and suddenly, I’m twenty-seven. Dang. I have to say, I thought I’d be married by now, maybe with a couple of kids, but it’s funny how our desires can change over time… how God can change our desires in accordance with His will. After all of the changes and forks in the road, one thing that’s come true about my own predictions of my future is that I am living overseas. I am not following the typical expected sequencing of life for a 20-something young American female. I have few things tying me down, and my future stretches before me like a vast, wide open ocean. But one has to come to the point in one’s life (i.e. at 27 years of age) and stop to take inventory. Like, what have I actually accomplished in this life? That question used to stress me out, and sometimes it still does if I’m not careful, but here’s the thing: life isn’t about a scoreboard. If I try to make a list of my accomplishments which I deem to have true eternal value, I fear that list would look depressingly short. But that doesn’t matter. Why? Because I know that I am – have always been – seeking after my God. Of course, I have made countless mistakes along the way and I have grown exponentially from them. I like to hope that I’ll get to heaven one day and find that my life influenced other people in ways I never realized. But even this is the least of my concerns. All I really want to see is the smiling face of my Father and feel his warm embrace as he kisses my face and whispers into my ear those words I’ve always longed to hear, “Well done, my daughter, my good and faithful servant, well done.” And that’s the truth of it.

Bring it on, 28.