Today is another “big” birthday, so I’m told. When I was a kid, I imagined what  life would be like in 2056, assuming of course, that I would live to be 100. Today my perspective is a bit more clear: I will be alive in 2056, but (statistically speaking) my address will probably be “Heaven.” All year, this factoid has made me more reflective about how I will choose to live out the next 40 years (or 21.1 if I’m an average, white American female).

Here are three things that have given me perspective about entering yet another decade:

1. Many people dread turning 30 or 40 or 50, etc. You know, I was actually happier at 50 than at 40 or 30! And another thing. Maybe it’s because I’m mathematically challenged, but I only recently realized that when you turn #, you’ve already lived out that number of years, so why should you dread the approach of any one birthday?
2. I have now been a disciple of Jesus for 75% of my life! The thought that He has kept me in faith all of these years, in spite of all my fears and failures, encourages and energizes me! “So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.” 2 Corinthians 4:16
3. The best birthday card I ever received asked . . . “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you are?” I considered the age when I was my truest self, still creative, playful, confident, curious, hopeful . . . not unimaginative, subdued, timid, apathetic or cynical . . . for me that age was 7, and I like to picture that in Christ I am moving back toward that soul-age, even as my face wrinkles and my “powers” diminish.

My “Ebenezer” for my 60th birthday, comes from the journals of Madeleine L’Engle: “The challenge I face with children is the redemption of adulthood. We must make it evident that maturity is the fulfillment of childhood and adolescence, not a diminishing; that it is an affirmation of life, not a denial; that it is entering fully into our essential selves. I don’t go along with people who say they’d never want to live their childhoods again; I treasure every bit of mine, all the pains as well as the joy of discovery. But I also love being a grownup. To be half a century plus is wonderfully exciting because I haven’t lost any of my past and am free to stand on the rock of all the past has taught me as I look towards the future.”  (A Circle of Quiet)