40.
In less than forty days I will turn forty years old.
Why is this birthday such a big deal this year?
Sure, it’s cultural.
And it is one of those significant birthdays I guess.
But it’s mostly me, I think.
Which is the problem, actually.
The two problems really.
Me. And thinking.
I can easily become convinced that I am the only human who gets lost in the what ifs and the what have already beens.
I’m so tempted to step head first into the hole of self-pity and wonder what on earth I have to show for forty years on this planet. If my life is half over (or more) what in the world have I been doing for all these decades? My possessions are few and tattered. I don’t even have a matching set of living room furniture for goodness sake. We have exactly one set of sheets for our bed. Our only working car is more than ten years old and has more than 200,000 miles on it. We’ve never owned our own home.
It seems paltry.
I’m so dramatic like that.
My dad always said I was theatrical, prone to drama and exaggeration. My mom called those tendencies sunshine in her life. (You see how different my parents were from one another?)
I know I have so much beauty and blessing in my children. I know. They are my opus, without question. I know my life has intrinsic value in Christ.
These are not really the points I’m pondering. And maybe there are those who believe to even ask the questions reveals a lack of faith or a spiritual immaturity.
That might be true.
But it seems, in crystal clear retrospect, that I waited too long to have children. That I made giant decisions poorly. That my general trajectory has been somehow … off.
This isn’t a feel-sorry-for-me post.
It’s more like a goodness-how-did-all-of-life-hit-fast-forward-without-my-knowledge?
A wake up call to finish better than I began. To live my days with intention and purpose.
To preach the sermon to myself when I need to hear it most – my life is not about pleasing me.
My life is not a giant search for happiness.
I do not belong to me.
My years have never been my own.
I guess that’s what staring down forty feels like this morning.
2 Comments
Rachel
Oh, Friend….
Yes.
I may have more than one set of sheets for our bed, but none of them are without holes from the dogs. We may have two cars, but both are thirteen years old with no air conditioning and a combined almost 400,000 miles. And I was thirty four when our son was born.
Thirty. Four.
Talk about late. And as I see friends publish books, birth baby #7, serve Jesus in big world-changing ways, and be recognized, my self-pity grows and grows and becomes so easy in which to wallow. I mean, who am I? Nobody.
But…
I am a child of the King, right? A princess!
But the what ifs definitely weigh down my crown, too…
lacey35
I hear you.
And you know – I still think about you and pray for you often. I meant to tell you that recently.
I really do – I pray for contentment and extended time spent with your husband, for sleep and rest and laughter, for a smiling son and good good days.