"Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely." ~I Corinthians 13:12
I turned fifty yesterday.
Wait, what? Did I just say FIFTY?
Yep, I said it right. Fifty years ago, I was born. WHAT IN THE ACTUAL WORLD?? I wouldn’t say this birthday hit me hard. Forty hit me pretty hard. This one’s just weird. It’s so WEIRD to say I’m FIFTY. My mom was fifty, my dad was fifty, other people are fifty. But me?? I just turned forty! Or so it feels.
Death is funny. It has a way of stopping time in the strangest way. As I was pondering where the heck this last decade went and wondering what in the world I was doing for the last ten years, it came to me.
I was grieving.
Grieving the loss of a marriage. Grieving my big kids leaving home. Grieving the loss of every single member of my family, one by one. Grieving the loss of life as I thought it would be. And while I was stuck in this sea of grief, life kept going. My older kids grew up. Grandbabies were born. The years went by. Birthdays and holidays came and went. And before I knew it, I turned fifty.
Something about this milestone makes you start reflecting. Reflecting about life, but for women (at least all the women I know), reflecting in the mirror. Oh my gosh, where did THAT line come from?? I don’t even know how that diagonal line even makes any sense on the side of my face?? How do your facial muscles even create a line like that?!
With each new line or gray hair leading up to this birthday, I began to get a bit nauseous. I kept telling myself to stop being so vain, it’s just a number, pull yourself together…. all of the normal things I tell myself when I start spiraling. But there was something about this birthday that just left me anxious and unsettled.
As I was complaining about the horror of turning fifty to my oh-so-patient husband, he pulled me close, telling me for the bajillionth time how beautiful I am, when out of nowhere, the Holy Spirit spoke to me and simultaneously convicted and uplifted me in a way that’s hard to put into words.
My brother never got to see fifty.
My sister-in-law never got to see fifty.
My niece never got to see fifty.
Another one of my brothers passed away a few months after turning fifty.
And then it hit me where the anxiety was coming from. So many people that I loved never got to experience being fifty. In that split second, I was overcome with both sadness and gratitude. Gratitude not because I don’t want to die. We all die. What an incredible day that will be when I get to see Jesus and my family! No, I was thankful because God still wants to use me, an honor that seriously blows me away every time I get a message from someone my words have touched. Because every day I wake up, I still get to see my little guys grow up. I get to see my grandbabies growing. I get to see my kids go to college, get married and start families and careers. I get to go for a run and laugh with my husband and grow old with him. I get to write these blog posts and use my story to let people know they are not alone in their pain. I get to do so many things my family members never got to do. And my heart changed in an instant.
Now I look in the mirror and I don’t just see myself. I don’t just look at the reflection. I look past it and through it. I see the years I have been blessed with and the ones to come. I see my purpose. I see the girl that God is still working on and through for His kingdom. The reflection changes, but my purpose here doesn’t. Every single day that I wake up is a chance to bring one more person with me as I am walking home.
They say perception is reality. As for turning fifty?
It’s my best birthday yet.
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