One Hour

One hour.

60 minutes.

The clock will strike midnight. The calendar will flip from January 28th to January 29th, and I will officially be 25 years old.

One hour. That's all I have left of my 24th year of life. I will never be 24 again, I will never have this time back, I will never be able to say that I am in my early 20's again.

In one hour, I will be a quarter of a century. I will be closer to 30 than I am to 20. I will be classified as mid-20's. I will once again be the same age as my sister for a month (we are Irish twins...born within a year of each other--10 months, 3 weeks to be exact.)

In one hour, I will be 25--the age that Queen Elizabeth was when she took the throne of England. The age that Orson Welles coscripted, directed, and starred in Citizen Kane. Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile. Charlie Chaplin had appeared in 35 films.

Isn't that crazy? Just one hour. And I will be 25.

I haven't done anything nearly as impressive or noteworthy as the Queen, Welles, Bannister, or Chaplin (or any of the hundreds of other amazingly successful 25 year old's I could have talked about)...in fact, my life is below average in many cases. My job is unremarkable to a lot of people, even though I enjoy it. I am still living at home, even though most people would call me a loser-I am debt free, so really--it's worth it. I'm not married, so I'll probably wind up being a crazy cat lady at this point. And I spend most of my time reading, doing puzzles, painting, or watching movies--so I don't really have a social life outside of the teenagers in my youth group.

But even though all of those things are true of my life, I have to admit to you something. I have a suspicion that while turning 25 isn't going to change much about who I am or my position in life, it is going to be a year that will be exciting and full of new discovery about God and who He wants me to be and what He wants me to do with my life. I can't figure it all out in one hour, but maybe, just maybe, a year from now, I'll have a better idea of what God is going to do with me for the next 25 years.

One hour. What are you going to do with it?