Growing up, everyone told you that graduating high school and moving out to go to college would be the biggest change and adventure of your whole life. In all honesty, that advice is dead wrong. College is like this fluffy cloud of pseudo-adulthood that can be wonderful (and my experience definitely was), but life after graduating college is a whole new level of transition. There’s no semesters to wrap your head around, and time begins to blend together.

Taylor got it right when she described 22 as “happy, free, confused, and lonely at the same time. It’s miserable and magical.”

Although it feels like one of the weirdest, most unstable times of life, I’m incredibly thankful thinking of everything that happened within this past year.

As a 22 year old, I got to live with 7 beautiful friends all in one crammed house without a dishwasher.

As a 22 year old I got to witness 20 beautiful girls grow stronger in their faith and grow closer to the Lord as resilient, passionate freshmen.

As a 22 year old, I started a business fueled by a love for marriage.

As a 22 year old, I got to graduate from JMU and celebrate the beginning of an entirely new chapter of life (I have a dishwasher now, I know, super exciting).

As a 22 year old, I got to know so many teenagers that are so close to my heart.

But most of all, I’ve learned so much about the grace of Jesus. That, ” there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Romans 8: 1-4)

I am free! The reality of my life is that I am free. Whether I feel it or not, I am free, free indeed. And that’s something to celebrate. Not the second digit of my age changing.

That is what I want to filter every oncoming life decision through. I have freedom in Jesus Christ. And I want the whole world to know that it is offered to you, too.

**Photo by the incredible Abby Grace Photography**