True to Life Tuesday – Turning 40

It’s the number of testing in the Bible.

40 years of wandering in the dessert.

40 days of fasting.

40 days and nights of rain.

40 isn’t the number you want assigned to you. Yet…here I am. I’m 40.

All in all, turning 40 has been pleasant though. Not nearly as difficult as turning 30 was.

At 30, I was married, but without children which I wanted badly. I had just lost my mother to cancer 5 months previous to my birthday and I was working at a job that I enjoyed, but was not exactly fulfilling in terms of my talents, abilities and calling. I was floating in a narrow stream, just trying to get somewhere, and hitting a landmark along the way seemed cruel and unusual. There was no trophy, no list checked off, nothing to feel proud of and very little to see in front of me. I knew that there was more to come, but I also felt like I was navigating that stream without a paddle and with very little around me to make the journey worth enjoying.

I was an ungrateful little me. I had to work my way out of that, but sorrow has a long shadow and can deceive a person into feeling somewhat alone in it’s darkness.

My friends and family threw me a very fun party for my 30th birthday. People went overboard, they went above and beyond and though I was thankful for their attention, it took me a long time to see the significance of their efforts. Ungratefulness makes your vision a little blurry.

I see it much more clearly now. Not just the beauty of my friends, but the way I was under a shadow. I thought I was fine, at the time, but I wasn’t. I was nit-picky, I was angry and I was selfish. I was probably hard to live with, but I was loved anyway.

Somewhere in the last 10 years, I found a hero in the gratefulness I had rejected. I asked for it and it came up underneath me and gave me something beautiful to stand on. I prayed for it and found it was so much more than an attitude. It is a clarity. It is an ability to see beyond what I hold in my hands, and to be moved by the sacrifice it took to get it there. It is a quenching of fear and discontentment, and a release of joy in the darkest of places.

Gratitude simplifies life.

It brings contentment and takes all the fluff and clutter out of my desires. Gratitude is not the spice of life, it is an empty plate with a clean fork and napkin and an anticipation of whatever God serves up.

My birthday was two weeks ago. I watched it coming and I worried a bit. I worried that I would sink into ungratefulness again, that I would somehow be unsatisfied. I can say with certainty that I am not unsatisfied.

I am still.

I am content.

Not because of what I’ve done, not because of what’s been done for me, but because I know it’s all passing. The good, the bad, the uncomfortable and the sweet, are all taking their places in time. Keeping their appointments with me and moving on. I am not condensed to a victim or a hero, I am simply resting among the marsh grasses in my narrow stream and the landmarks are significant for their whimsy, but not for their speeches.

I am made up of very little, and more able to enjoy the filling of the Spirit of God. Each year I learn more of that rest. I learn to chip away a little more at the self formed details of my shape and surrender the vessel to the Potter’s hands. I could tell you of the messes I’ve made but I don’t have to. I could tell you of the character I’ve built but it’s foolishness.

I have stopped looking for a paddle now, and am letting Him navigate, trusting His direction, believing that 40 years doesn’t signify the end of testing in my life, instead it is the acknowledgement that the Promised Land is always just a whispered “thank you” away.