And we’re here. How do I properly capture where I’m at as I enter this next decade of my life? 

As I think over my 30’s, I think about Building. Creating. Growing. Awakening. Reckoning. Rebuilding. 

It was in my 30’s that I quit my job to pursue LIY full-time. Hired 10+ women. Bought a house in Florida. Opened a shop. Became a mother. Completed a round of IVF. 

But even bigger than that, I started therapy. Maintained old friendships and developed new ones. Became fully and authentically known by the ones closest to me. I faced the consequences of my own brokenness and discovered that healing starts where hiding ends. I Iearned what it actually meant to sit in the hard. To not escape my emotions. I experienced on a very tangible and spiritual level what it looks like to surrender and seek an intimate relationship with the Lord. 

This last decade was full of building and tearing down. 

What I’m learning is that the transformation is in the tearing down, because it’s sometimes in the things we build that become the places we hide. The place where you’re brought to your knees, where you know the only One truly holding you together is the One who has held you from the beginning. For years, my greatest fear was being fully known. What I’m learning today is that it’s only in this place where true freedom exists. 

The very season I thought would destroy me became the one God used to rescue me.

As I step into my 40’s, I am grateful to be in the place that I sit in today. To know that the Erin I am bringing into my marriage, motherhood, leadership, and friendship, is an Erin I never imagined as possible. She’s more honest, more grounded, and more free. 

Aging is a gift. And if we take the time to untie the ribbon, rip off the tissue paper, and open the box wide up, what we are left to uncover and discover is the greatest gift of all – another year, another decade, to step more fully into the human that Jesus created me to be. For the first time in all of my years, I truly understand the power, the promise, and the present that this is. 

If my 30’s taught me anything [and trust me, it taught me a lot], it’s this:

Being fully known isn’t the thing that breaks you. It’s the place where Jesus begins to make you whole.