Katie Schnack - The Gap Decade: When Youre Technically an Adult But Really Dont Feel Like It Yet

InterVarsity Press
P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515-1426
ivpress.com

2021 by Katelyn Marie Schnack

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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from The Holy Bible, New International Version, NIV. Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com. The NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.

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Cover design and image composite: David Fassett
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sparse golden confetti: Anna Efetova / Moment Collection / Getty Images
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ISBN 978-0-8308-3168-5 (digital)

ISBN 978-0-8308-3167-8 (print)

This digital document has been produced by Nord Compo.

For Kyle, Sunny, and Shepherd

Hey there. You know whats hard? Waiting. And yes, even waiting for things like your coffee to brew is really tough. HURRY UP, YOU SLOW DRIPPING MONSTER OF AGONY. But I am talking about waiting in a dry, gut-wrenching season of life. Ya feel me? A season that makes you go, I am here. But I really want to be over there, but I have zero idea how that will happen or if it even will. Times of waiting and wanting can come at any stage of lifewaiting for the right job to come along. Waiting for a spouse. Waiting for that baby to come along. Waiting for a new juicy true crime documentary to release on Netflix. It can get hard, guys. The wait is hard.

Learning how to be at peace in the waiting is tough, but if you can master it, it will be invaluable. I hope you know God is there in the waiting, even when it seems like he instead took a vacation to Maui. God is there, seeing you wait, feeling your heartbreak and whispering to you, Just keep holding on a bit longer. I know what I am doing.

The first part of this book is about one of my first big seasons of waiting. One where I didnt know what was next, how things were going to work out, or even what step to take, and it was scary. But, heyI made it through. You will too.

S omething really crazy happened to me when I was twelve. I met my husband, Kyle. And, even as a lanky preteen whose thinking was typically tainted by the constant cloud of Bath and Body Works Cucumber Melon body spray fumes I lived within, I knew the moment I saw him we were meant to be together, with a sense of clarity and complete peace. I knew he was my person. My lobster. Whatever you want to call it. Wild, right? And of course very cheesy. But there ya have it, folks. My love origination story is one big ball of cheese.

We were at a birthday party in our suburban Minnesota town. It was spring, and the air still had that damp chill to it yet was full of new life. Everyone seemed to be buzzing off the energy of knowing the snow was finally gone for good and summer was right around the corner. I was wearing the ugliest bright red hoodie possible with our high school logo on itgo Cardinals. Kyle was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and khaki cargo pants with pockets big enough to store a Nokia cell phone and a Walkman, which is very impressive. My hair was scrunched with so much Suave hairspray. Every natural curl was shellacked tight and secure, as it could only be in 1999. Kyles hair was bleached blond, but it looked orange because that is what happens when a teenage boy does at-home highlights. It was plastered with so much product it stuck straight up to the heavens in spikes sharp enough to poke out multiple eyeballs at once.