Lordy, Lordy, I really am 40...

I woke up this morning to kisses from little girls and whispers of Happy Birthday in my ears. A foggy gray morning and a head cold to mark the passing of another year. I can't believe that I have reached the half way point, the big 4-0 as they say. The top of the hill ( which is good because I hate climbing so I am kind of ready to coast) It doesn't seem possible that I have experienced 40 years already. I can still remember playing on the playground at Immanuel Daycare, being hot and sweaty, eating popsicles and making clover chains to pass the long hot Summer hours while my Mother worked. I can still smell the stink of the dump and the taste of  Brown Cow out of a bottle on Saturday morning trips with Daddy. I remember school days, friends, first kisses and nervous dates. These things feel like yesterday's memories and at the same time they feel like a lifetime ago. When I tell my girls about dates with their Daddy and trips we took before them, it seems like another life. I watched a video someone posted the other day on Facebook that was filmed my senior year of high school and I could see the faces, hear the voices, remember those people, but could not place a lot of their names anymore, lost somewhere over these 40 years and faded into another life so far removed from where I am now that it no longer feels like I was there. It is strange how fast life passes us by and yet we don't even feel it or notice it happening until it is done. I don't feel 40. When I glance in the mirror I don't see myself as older, as halfway through my life. I don't think about how many years have passed or how much time is still ahead. I just see me, but if I really look at myself, past that first glance, then I see time. I see the gray hair that blends in and pokes out here and there and lately everywhere. I see the laugh lines at the corner of my eyes and the way the skin doesn't just bounce right back after a good laugh or a hard cry. I spend the morning stretching and sometimes feeling the curves of the mattress and the effects of yesterday's work in my bones. I realize that while I was picturing the people around me growing up as being old, they were just where I am now and it doesn't seem so old anymore. Time is a funny thing .
I am happy about my birthday. I am not sad or depressed about being 40. I am o.k. with it. I know lots of people in my life who have already gone to be with the Lord and never got to make it to the halfway point. I have mourned for them and prayed for those they have left behind. I still think of them often. Good people...great people, people who I still don't understand why they had to be taken so early. I wake up and realize I have seen more sunrises and more beautiful sunsets than they ever had the chance to and I feel thankful. Thankful to God for allowing me to experience 40 years of laughter, tears, heartbreak, joy. Forty years of friendships and the blessing of a great husband and beautiful children, parents who are still with me, friends both new and old. I have gotten to watch my girls grow and laugh and have experienced so many things all over again through their eyes and with them and for that I am thankful. I praise God for the gray hair and I remember Proverbs 16:31 that says "Gray hair is a crown of glory, it is gained by living a godly life" and I am thankful. I praise God for the laugh lines because it means I have spent lots of my years in joy and I am thankful. I praise God for my aches and pains because it means I am still moving and for that I am thankful. I don't know how much time God has planned for me either long or short. I can't predict what tomorrow will hold, but for today, I am thankful.
As I spend my birthday morning watching Tangled with the girls, Emma asks if I wish she had magic hair to make me young again and I laugh and think about that for a long time before answering...no. I am happy to be "old", happy to be where I am and I would not want to go back and live any part of my life over. It has all happened for a reason and it has all made me who I am and brought me to where I am today and I would not trade a second of it to go back. I face 40 happy, healthy, and content, and for that I am thankful.
I will be your God throughout your lifetime -until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you. - Isaiah 46:4