Have you had a DEFINING moment?

I personally don’t believe in just ONE defining moment. I believe that life is full a lots and lots of defining moments. I feel sad to see people living their lives as if one moment defined their entire life. Some live life depressed because their defining moment has passed and thus they are no longer as significant as before. Others live as if a defining moment has sunk their ship and ruined them forever. So many decisions in my life have been small and over my entire life, a bit insignificant, but there have been others that have truly defined who, what, and where I am.

Just to start I need to say that my childhood was wonderful. I grew up in a two parent home with lots of love, laughter, and security. I had tremendous support from an extended family. As a child, I can only remember one funeral (that of my great grandmother). Rarely did any significant devastation affect my life or that of anyone in my family. All of this was defining me and who I would become.

Adolescence proved a different story for me. My first tragedy occurred with the loss of a very dear friend when I was 16. This was probably not the best time in my growth and development to experience that sort of an emotional blow. This was a defining moment in my life. I left home and started college at a Christian university. I would not say that was one of the best experiences in my life. Maybe it was just wrong place; wrong time or maybe that just wasn’t ever a place for me. Either way, I struggled with my faith or everything that at one time seemed true and right to me. This was another defining moment in my journey. From the time that I left school until the time that I married Rocky I will just call my “wandering in chaos” time of life. Because I’m not at an emotional point to write about much of this time, I will assure you that this time was a defining moment in my life.

As a young adult, newly married, I began to shape the way that my life would be as a wife and mother. This was when I started to take seriously my choices and their consequences. This was the whirlwind part of my life. Marriage, moving, having babies, changing jobs, and buying all of the “firsts” with my husband were the constant changes occurring in my life. Although, I rarely had time to notice, these may have been the most significant defining moments in my life.

Now, I find myself in early adulthood, it seems to be the first time that I am realizing that life is full of defining moments. I FINALLY get it. I want to view all major decisions as just that…a moment worth defining me.