The In Between

Country Artist Kelsea Ballerini has a song out now that I am currently obsessed with. The song title is In Between, and the chorus goes like this:

Sometimes I’m my mother’s daughter, sometimes I’m her friend
Sometimes I play grown up and sometimes I play pretend
Sometimes I’m a princess dressed all ribbons and all curls
And sometimes I just wanna scream “I’m not a little girl!“
Dumb enough to think I know it all
Smart enough to know I don’t
Young enough to think I’ll live forever
Old enough to know I won’t 

In between

The other night, as I was dancing and singing into my fake microphone to this song the words of the chorus really hit me. I realized that this song was talking directly to me. I am 22 and living in the “in between.” 

My mom is my best friend, but when all goes wrong, or I am in trouble she becomes my mother and I, her helpless daughter holding on tight to her leg. I am somehow an adult now. I take care of three children, and I am seen as the authority figure, but y’all in my head I am a Disney princess.

I love to get dressed up, and pretend that maybe one day my prince will come. I like to act like I know it all (pretty sure this is the control freak and perfectionist in me) even though I learn knew things everyday. Most of the time I am pretty sure I feel invincible-like I own the whole world, and anything is possible. “Bring on the rain,” I say. Then the rain comes, and all I want to do is hide under a rock. So what does it mean to act your age when you don’t even know how to define the weird “in betweens” of life? 

The bible says in 1 Timothy 4:12

Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith and in purity. NIV

I have heard this verse my whole life, and I usually just dismiss it as a way of saying Jesus loves the little children, but what if this is a road map. A road map to help guide people like me who are stuck in the “in between”. I may not know how to act my age, or even what the phrase “act your age” really means, but I do know that even in my “in between” that my faith is solid and real. Jesus is honestly the only solid concrete thing in my life. I do not know who I am, but I know who He is. He is a loving, powerful, merciful never-changing God, and I also know that I was built in his image.    

So I might be stuck in a weird spot at the ripe young age of 22, but through Jesus’s example I have a pretty good idea of what it means to be wise in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity. I can open up any of the four gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), and see what kind of “in between” life I am supposed to lead while I wait on God’s ultimate plan for my life. Maybe, just maybe, God gives us these in between years to draw closer to him, and as I draw closer to him, something tells me I just might find myself.