More birthday musings...

     How the heck am I forty-three?  Seriously.  Every time I go to say it, even, my internal autocorrect changes it to thirty-four before it spits it out of my mouth.  It doesn't really seem like that long ago that I was the skinny cowlicked child with the bad haircut spending my days running around our farm with my brother getting barn straw all over my clothes and the evenings lounging around on the couch with my nose in a book;  my mom frying up some porkchops & making mashed potatoes while Wheel of Fortune played on the tv in the background.

    I was so innocent, naïve and full of dreams back then.  Then time ticked-tocked on by,  one second at a time,  and here I sit a thousand miles from my childhood farm turning forty-three and knowing life just doesn't always go the way you think.  I am not teaching science to a class full of kindergartners; I am not the author of a children's book;  I am not living across some magical fairyland pond from my best friend while we each raise little barefooted boys & girls wearing bib overalls & sunbonnets who chase fireflies together every evening.  Lol...the dreams of children are so pure, hopeful and totally not based on  reality!

    This last couple years have been a couple of the hardest years of my life in many ways.   Also...in other ways, a couple of the best years of my life.   It's funny how that is...life has so many different kinds of hard.   Just a few years ago I was in the battle zone of raising a litter of littles.  Nursing babies crying to be held,  toddlers spilling milk all over the counter, young children demanding help with subtraction...all at the same time that you desperately need five minutes alone in the bathroom!  Those years were hard.  My sister is in those years now...and I tell her--those years are so, so hard for moms...especially when it seems like the world has just set its sights on judging you for every snotty nose, every scream in the grocery store and every un-socked foot while you are just begging someone to throw you the proverbial life vest so you don't drown in a pile of diapers!  That was a hard time in my life, physically & psychologically.  

    But these past couple years have been something else altogether.  They've been an emotional hard--Covid lockdowns, a family member's suicide, deep struggles in my marriage, losing my mother-in-law, my Dad's accident, my mom's declining health and the struggles in my relationship with her, moving to a new state, watching friends deal with their own tragedies/losses, etc.  I have never felt as helpless & unstable as I have these last 2-3 years.  It's taken a toll on my body...to the point where I really am starting to believe I'm in my forties.   But one of the beautiful things about feeling helpless and at the end of yourself is it puts us in the best position to lean more on Jesus.  

    I will never discount the pain of these years.  But I know that the reason I can say with sincerity that in a lot ways these have been some of my best years, as well, is because Jesus has been amplified in my life.    I have seen Him do miracles in response to my prayers!  I have seen Him work in the hearts of my husband & children.  I have spent so many nights with Him as my one & only resource.  During those busy "hard" years with the kids...I served God with my hands & my lips but my heart did not know what it really meant to set myself aside.  My heart did not know what it meant to be truly humbled.   My heart did not know the depth of Jesus' sacrifice for me because I didn't know the depth of my own sinful heart.  

    So much has changed since I turned 40.  I am still shocked when I realize how old I'm getting and that I've easily reached the "midlife" part of life.  But I'm becoming more comfortable in my skin;  I'm becoming more comfortable with the unpredictability of life.  I never have liked change...but I'm learning to embrace each new opportunity that God gives me and to release the things from the past that may be a hinderance to His plan for my future.  Nothing in this life is permanent and it took me way too much of my life to accept that.   

    And I'm still learning.  I can't say these things are completely learned.  When life doesn't turn out the way we hoped...we just have to learn to roll into His will and keep going.  When God tells us to move, we move.  When God tells us to stay, we stay.  Of course, sometimes, when God says, 'shut up, sit still, & let go', instead of obeying,  we cry & rage & hold on tight until we wear ourselves out.  And God waits.  He loves us and gently tells us again to 'shut up, sit still & let go' and we say in response, "I don't know how.  Jesus, please help me."  And then He gives us the strength for the day and patiently waits for us to remember to rely on Him again tomorrow.  That's what I'm learning.

    So today...on my 43rd birthday, I will meditate on Psalm 43 "Send out your light and truth; let them lead me;  let them bring me to your holy hill and to your dwelling!" and also on God's words to Israel in Isaiah 43.  "Fear not, for I have redeemed you;  I have called you by name, you are mine.  When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.  For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior."