3dogmom from RevGals has this week’s Friday Five:

I’m fortunate to be on the emailing list of a friend and business coach. Her enthusiasm for helping people strive toward achieving dreams and living authentically inspires me regularly, and even if I don’t always take advantage of the opportunities she shares, the resources she tells us about are always close at hand.

This week she told us about an app called “timehop.” It looks back at where we’ve been as a touchstone to seeing where we are now. It’s also a helpful reminder of what other people were experiencing in their lives, and can serve to encourage us to reach out and touch.

For today’s Friday Five, share with us where you were and what you were up to 1, 3, 5, 10, and 20 years ago! What were your dreams—did you follow them? Who was journeying with you? Feel free to keep it light (I was on vacation at the beach with my bestie!) or reflect more deeply (a call was brewing…). Have any pictures from those moments to share? We’d love to see them!

Wow. Well, this is definitely a trip down Memory Lane! So here we go…

1. One year ago: 2013 – Both lovely daughters graduated (one from college, one from high school!) A mad party scene ensued!

2. Three years ago: 2011 – I was in my last unit of CPE (Clinical Pastoral Education) and working as a per diem chaplain at night. The bags under my eyes began to take up permanent residence.  We had one daughter in college and one in high school. Life was busy. Crazy. And pretty sweet.

3. Five years ago: 2010 – I graduated from seminary with a whole lot of support and love from my family. I  started my CPE training. I had a ceremonial shredding of my copy of that dratted Turabian book. And I learned how important it was to have friends and mentors who encouraged and challenged me and helped me grow. I was a RevGal and loved it.

4. Ten years ago: 2004 – I was an at-home mom, with an 8 year old and a 12 year old, and helping my mother-in-law move to live near us here in the DC area. I was doing a lot of writing and moved my stuff from a website to my blog. (I actually went and looked up my first blog post here… I’ve grown and changed a lot since then!) I wanted to go to seminary, but didn’t see “how” that could happen. I sang in choirs and on a “praise team,” played handbells and wrote devotionals. (Some of them make me shudder.) This was also when I went on a Walk to Emmaus weekend as a pilgrim and was challenged to accept God’s call on my life. It was a terrifying, exciting time because I said “YES!”  This was also the year we had to say good-bye to our beloved Clyde. 😦

5. Twenty years ago: 1994 – I had a lovely preschooler and was newly pregnant with my second daughter (born in 1995). We were living in our first house on the other side of the Beltway near DC. I spent the fall having morning sickness. I was writing, studying and volunteering. And didn’t know that I “could” be a pastor. We also got the news around this time that my dad had Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma. (I went looking for photos from this time period, but I don’t have any digitized. They are all “analog.” It’s probably a good thing.)