Twenty-Eight Lessons I’ve Learned

It’s My Birthday!

I turn 28 this week! I’ve listed out 28 lessons I’ve learned. This is a tradition I’ve been doing every year to celebrate my birthday. I think two things can happen during another birthday — first, women have a weird relationship with age. There is definitely a negative stigma with women getting older. Your value doesn’t change with age!!! I want to keep celebrating my age and who God is creating me to be. Secondly, I never want to stop growing. I don’t mean height (I’ve stopped growing that way around twelve-years-old at 5 foot 2 inches). I never want to stop growing as an individual, as a professional, as a friend, a wife… I want to continue to learn no matter what. This exercise has been really good for me to look back on. I try to list out as many lessons as I can from this year. I hope you can learn something too!

1. Change is good, but with new something has to die. It’s ok to grieve change.
2. When angry, take a walk. At this point you have nothing good to say until you cool off. 
3. Complaining about God is grumbling while complaining to God is a Psalm.
4. Putting your identity in what Jesus did for you instead of other titles you give yourself (radio engineer, therapist, wife, daughter, friend…) grounds you like nothing else!
5. It’s good to make memories with just your spouse.
6. You have to put the work into your marriage. 
7. Everyone is emotional. Emotions and feelings are the things that pull up your memories. If you have memories you have emotions. 
8. Having a planner helps! 
9. Life isn’t a game — someone else’s gain isn’t your loss. 
10. If you are getting overwhelmed by your planner, get a daily one and only focus on one day at a time.
11. Get a cordless vacuum.
12.  Shop less and buy better.
13. Take yourself (what you do, your art, your profession…) seriously (because then others will too) !!!
14. A lack of support killed more dreams than a lack of competence ever did.
15. Teach the Bible because it is life changing. 
16. Jealousy is soooo sneaky and destroys relationships.
17. Invest in yourself because no one else will.
18. A great way to grow is to serve others. 
19. Listen and learn from other cultures. When you do, you actually learn about yourself too. 
20. Hard is good. 
21. Grace is God’s action in our lives to accomplish what we can’t do on our own – Dallas Willard. 
22. When you’re afraid of failing, tell someone, remember a time you failed and lived, and then list the things that you’ve succeeded in.
23. Gas your friends up!!! Support those in your circles like crazy.
24. Healthy doesn’t always mean skinny.
25. Have faith like Joseph. 
26. God really does meet you in hard times. 
27. If you’re a pastor’s wife, join a pastor’s wife support group! Your church family isn’t going to be the place you get recharged and that’s ok.
28. Speak. You have something good to say. You also have permission to heal. 

Wow! It has been a hard year, but I wrote those 28 lessons so fast. It’s amazing how hard things teach you the best lessons. Which one are you currently learning? Let me know in the comments.

— Hannah Lynn

Read the Lessons I’ve learned from Previous Birthday Posts

Twenty-Five Lessons I’ve Learned

Twenty-Seven Lessons I’ve Learned