“have you ever heard of shauna niequist?” 

this is a question i find myself asking everyone these days. girlfriends, acquaintances, co-workers, even members at the club. author of three novels –cold tangerines, bittersweet, and her most recent work, bread & wine –a collection of essays that also incorporate personal recipes, shauna has been in the literary game for over five years. but it was only recently that i became familiar with her writings. and since first devouring (no pun intended) bittersweet on a plane ride to nashville last year, i haven’t been able to get her out of my head since. but that’s just it. i don’t want to. and furthermore, i have this overwhelming desire to share her stories with everyone i meet. kind of like when you have an incredible meal at a new restaurant or hear a can’t-get-it-out-of-your-head song, you recommend it to anyone with a pulse just because you want everyone else to experience its goodness as well.

i mean, it should be no surprise that i would love shauna given our twin nomenclature alone, but every time i re-read an excerpt from bittersweet or come across a quote from bread & wine that has been pinned and reblogged a half dozen times, i am reminded precisely why it is that this midwestern blonde is one of my favorite authors. her words grow with you. they are timeless. they have this crazy ability transcend life stage. and the words that you read when you were broken-hearted and 22 have the same power that they do when you’re thriving and 28. their application might be different, sure, but somehow her words still resonate. and that my friends, is the mark of a true author.

so today i am thankful for shauna niequist. for her ability to write pieces that find significance in my life season after season. i am thankful for how she inspires me to not only be a better writer, but a better person overall. it’s pretty neat to share a name with such a phenomenal woman. even if she’s confused about the proper spelling.

i leave you with perhaps my most favorite chapter of any of her books. from her sophomore novel, bittersweet, it’s entitled “twenty-five,” and though my quarter-of-a-century-birthday was now almost three and a half years ago, i still think it applies just as much now as it it did then.

Here are a few thoughts on being twenty-five-ish, some that I knew, because smart older people gave me good advice, and some that I really wish I had known, that those smart older people probably did tell me, and that I lost track of along the way…

I know that most people need a season of space, a time to take a step back and evaluate the spiritual context of their youth. I didn’t go to church for a long season in college, and that space and freedom was so important for me. It gave me the perspective I needed to find my own faith. But it’s very easy for a season of space to turn into several years without any kind of spiritual groundedness.

It’s easy to wake up several years from now and find yourself unable to locate that precious, faith-filled part of your heart and history, because it slowly disintegrated over months and years. Don’t do that. Do whatever you have to do to connect with God in a way that feels authentic and truthful to you. Do it now, so that you don’t regret the person you become, little by little, over time, without it. This is the thing: when you start to hit twenty-eight or thirty, everything starts to divide, and you can see very clearly two kinds of people: on one side, people who have used their twenties to learn and grow, to find God and themselves and their deep dreams, people who know what works and what doesn’t, who have pushed through to become real live adults.

And then there’s the other kind, who are hanging on to college, or high school even, with all their might. They’ve stayed in jobs they hate because they’re too scared to get another one. They’ve stayed with men or women who are good but not great because they don’t want to be lonely. They mean to find a church, they mean to develop honest, intimate friendships, they mean to stop drinking like life is one big frat party. But they don’t do those things, so they live in kind of an extended adolescence, no closer to adulthood than they were when they graduated college.

Don’t be like that. Don’t get stuck. Move, travel, take a class, take a risk. Walk away, try something new. There is a season for wildness and a season for settledness, and this is neither. This season is about becoming. Don’t lose yourself at happy hour, but don’t lose yourself on the corporate ladder either. Stop every once in a while and go out to coffee or climb in bed with your journal. Ask yourself some good questions like, Am I proud of the life I’m living? What have I tried this month? What have I learned about God this year? What parts of my childhood faith am I leaving behind, and what parts am I choosing to keep with me for this leg of the journey? Do the people I’m spending time with give me life, or make me feel small? Is there any brokenness in my life that’s keeping me from moving forward?

These years will pass much more quickly than you think they will. You will go to lots of weddings, and my advice, of course, is to dance your pants off at every single one. I hope you go to very few funerals. You’ll watch TV and run on the treadmill and go on dates, some of them great and some of them terrible. Time will pass, and all of a sudden, things will begin to feel a little more serious. You won’t be old, of course. But you will want to have some things figured out, and the most important things only get figured out if you dive into them now.

For a while in my early twenties I felt like I woke up a different person every day, and was constantly confused about which one, if any, was the real me. I feel more and more like myself with each passing year, for better and for worse, and you’ll find that, too. Every year, you will trade a little of your perfect skin and your ability to look great without exercising for wisdom and peace and groundedness, and every year the trade will be worth it. I promise.

Now is your time. Become, believe, try. Walk closely with people you love, and with other people who believe that God is very good and life is a grand adventure. Don’t spend time with people who make you feel like less than you are. Don’t get stuck in the past, and don’t try to fast-forward yourself into a future you haven’t yet earned. Give today all the love and intensity and courage you can, and keep traveling honestly along life’s path. (via)

image via: margaret feinberg.com.