Last month, I celebrated a birthday. I always anticipate my birthday far enough in advance that when it arrives, it doesn’t feel like such a big deal. Turning thirty wrecked me, but forty and fifty, not so much. I’m discovering age is not what it seems from a distance and what you see in the mirror may not reflect what you feel inside (cue George Strait singing “Troubadour”).

Because the births of our eight children spread across nineteen years, we still have children at home, whereas my mother had been an empty nester for at least fifteen years at my age. This is a sobering age… my mother passed away when she was three months younger than I am now.

I’m keenly aware that time is a gift I shouldn’t squander.

And I have to keep reminding myself of that… when my children want to use my age against me, as if it’s something I could control or deny. When my hormones go haywire and the number on the scale hurtles head first in the wrong direction. Or when I just want to scream, “This isn’t what I signed up for!”

Though my body is changing, in my mind I’m the same person as I’ve always been, just viewing the world through hopefully wiser eyes.

Last year our youngest daughter graduated from our homeschool, which in essence was a graduation for me too. After thirty years as a homeschooling mom, I’ve shed the guilt about pursuing my own interests. For years, I spent spring Saturdays (and many weeknights) watching my children’s track meets or ball games—and loved it! But at this moment, instead of sitting on cold bleachers or racing back and forth between shot put, discus, and the track, trying not to miss any of my children’s events, I’m in my PJs writing at 8:30 in the morning on the first Saturday of spring. It’s pretty glorious.

My time is mostly my own, and I’m using it in ways that wouldn’t have been possible or practical before.

Our children are older and independent and therefore don’t require as much oversight or chauffeuring, so my husband and I have more free time to reconnect in this sweet season of life. For years, we used part of our Sunday evening date nights to plan how we’d tackle that week’s activities. Now we spend more time at the movies, binge-watching Netflix, or just sitting in the same room reading. Every night is a potential date night.

In addition to more freedom with my time in this second half of life, I realize that with time comes experience. I can speak to women about things I’ve studied (like essential oils from a biblical perspective) and things I’ve experienced (like marriage and friendships that have endured for decades). After teaching my children and students in our Classical Conversations program subjects I love, like literature and art history, I can lead tutor training to equip others to do the same. I can empathize with a woman who’s miscarried a child, relate to the mom of a troubled teen, and reassure the woman whose child says she hates her that someday their relationship can not only heal but flourish.

For the first time, I’m writing fiction. I thought it would be fun to invent imaginary people and places after writing two research-heavy nonfiction books (and it is!). Yet it’s my own, personal experience and life lessons that have helped me develop the characters in my book. Years of writing for you lovely (in)courage readers have trained me to take a story and dig down to its deeper meaning. Those are my favorite passages to read in fiction (the ones I highlight or underline on my Kindle) and they’re satisfying to write too.

The passage of time creates opportunities to share what we know, equip others, and explore new things, even as it takes away our ability, need, or desire for other things. (My body won’t let me play softball like I did in high school (oh, how I miss it), but I can enjoy sharing tips with my daughter’s boyfriend who is playing for the first time in a league with fellow firefighters.)

The Lord wants us to learn from our experiences so we can teach and comfort others the way He has taught and consoled us over the years.

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.”
2 Corinthians 1:3-6 ESV

The next time you’re overwhelmed by your current circumstances, spend time with a woman who’s been there and can give you her long-range perspective.

And the next time you worry you’re getting older and are no longer able (or no longer have) to do the things you used to, appreciate the depth of your knowledge and experience and look for ways to share the things you’ve learned — and God’s grace and mercy — with others.

 

Listen to today’s devotion below or wherever you stream podcasts!

 

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