Sayin' Goodbye to the Forties!

There are my new birthday boots!
Taken with my new birthday iPad!
Making getting old isn't so bad after all.

My birthday was yesterday, April 19th, and I turned 49 years old. (do the math if you want to figure out the year!)

Famously, it is the date Captain Cook first spotted Australia and the day of the first shot of the American Revolution.

Infamously, it the date of the fall of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco and the Oklahoma City bombing. Lovely.

It is so odd to keep getting older according to the calendar and according to your body and according to your hair, but to really and truly not feel any older on the inside.

I am not one that resents getting older.
I don't feel the need to look like I am 20 for the rest of my life.
Every person on the planet has ten years to enjoy being in their 20's. That is it. And then you get ten years to be in your 30's. And then....I am sure you have figured out the math by now.

And I am now in the final year I am allotted of being in my 40's.
Like I said, I don't resent getting older, but there are some aspects I don't like. But, there are also facts about myself that I am finally comfortable with and finally accept. And there are some hard earned lessons that I wouldn't give up for all the firm skin and absence of gray hair you could give me.

Things I Don't Like:

• the way my neck looks if my head is bent down. I hope the fashion of wearing scarves sticks around for several more decades.
• the effect of gravity on my body. Enough said.
• the fact that if I eat as much as I ate just a few short years ago, I will definitely NOT look like I did a few short years ago. There will most definitely be MORE of me to love!
• the way aches and pains just sort of pop up out of nowhere. Areas hurt that I never even realized I had!

Things I Am Comfortable With (finally):

• I don't sing well and will never perform a solo. But I absolutely love making a joyful noise to the Lord!
• I am short.
• I like to sleep.
• I am sortof messy. I go from one project to another when not everything is put away from the previous project. But I get more done that way, so....
• I am an idea person with lots of things I have thought of that I would like to do. For years I have felt like a failure that all the ideas were not getting done. Now I look at them as a multiple choice of possibilities.

Things I KNOW (in the deepest part of my "knower):

• God is good, all the time.
• God wastes nothing.
• God has a plan and the hurts, the failures, and the derailments of life will not alter that plan.
• I must never, EVER, compare myself or what I have or what I don't have to anyone and what I perceive to be what they have or don't have.
• I am not good.
• I am not good enough.
• God never asked me to be.
• My greatest joy, my greatest contentment, my greatest fulfillment, my greatest achievement is found in a deep, intimate, continual relationship with the King of my heart.

So hello forty-nine!  My last year of my forties. Let's make it a good one!