The day before my birthday is always a bitter-sweet day for me. Today is my last day to be 17-year-old Olivia. People constantly change. The person you are today is not the person you were 365 days ago. I never expected my senior year to play out like it did. 365 days from now, I will be fully immersed in another culture across the world. I know I’m going to change a lot within the next year. 

    But at the same time, my excitement is growing because I feel like I have been climbing this mountain of life and I’m finally at the top. I feel as though I am looking over everything that life is going to hold for me: every hill and every valley. 

    I want to remember 17-year-old Olivia with all her faults and all her strengths, because I’m going to be saying good-bye to her very soon.

17 lessons I learned at 17: 

Devoting my life to serving God is the most worthwhile thing I can do with it. 

Joy is a choice.

Dwelling on the past robs you of your present.

God will rarely leave you where you are comfortable when you are seeking Him.

Stress rarely changes anything but robbing you of enjoying the present.

Sometimes the healthiest thing you can do for yourselves is to start saying “no” to things you love.

God’s word is truly living and active.

If you are lactose intolerant, it’s not worth it to eat ice cream.

Dogs are one of the greatest joys in life.

The more you seek to be humble the more prideful you realize you are.

Only keep possessions that you find beautiful or useful. 

My life is not my own because I have surrendered it to Christ. That means my time is His, my money is His, my plans are His.

He is still good whether I feel like He is or not. He is good when I succeed. He is good when I fail Him and He is faithful to me when I am faithless to Him.

People carry a lot more bitterness in their hearts than they realize, but God can heal the deepest wounds in your heart. Resisting bitterness reveals strength, dwelling on it is easy.  

The right thing to do and what I feel like doing are completely different (most of the time). 

Teach yourself new skills, it's a crazy beautiful world out there.

I find Him in the little things: water droplets running down my car, a flower, puppy kisses, misty mornings. I find that my heart is closest to Him when I just stop. 

18 hopes for my 18th year:

That I would learn to truly love God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.

To learn how to ride a horse.  

To go to Greece and France, as well as living in Turkey. 

To learn Turkish, work on my French, and eventually get a degree in TESOL.

To trust Him with my finances.

To do watercolor and ink paintings in my travel journal whenever I find a beautiful place. 

To lean not on my own understanding.

To write more poetry.

To memorize more scripture, starting with the book of Ephesians.

To get better at yoga, especially aerial. 

That God would reveal the sins in my heart that I am blind of.

To learn how to pray without ceasing.

To live in the moment, to find the beauty in the ugliest circumstances.

To learn how to drive stick shift.

To go on more hikes.

Read Les Mis (among other classics).

To write more letters.

That my 18th year would be one of the most beautiful years of my life, and that I would look back on it as the year that the Lord drew me close to Him.

(article originally published on 5/4/17)