The Beauty of Growing Older

Someone once said that you can’t hide your true colors as you approach the autumn of your life.

And I think it’s true. The older I get, the more I want to be me. 
No false pretenses or fancy facades.

Just. Me.

God-made, but imperfect.
Broken, but made whole through Christ.

No masks. No falsehoods. No pretending. Just … real. I want to bloom right where I’m planted, like a sunny petal against the cerulean sky — with enough gaps so that God’s light can shine through.  

I want to feel more comfortable in my own skin,
stand for who I am,
and who God made me to be — wrinkles and all.

I want to live free.

I’m 39 years old. (Which I used to think sounded old.) I’m nearly 40. (Which they say is over the hill.) On the downside of a hill, there’s no slowing down. Maybe that means we can pick up a bit of steam for the marvelously wild journey home, and who doesn’t love the way it feels with the wind blowing back our hair?

When I was 22, I would have thought a 40-year-old me  had one foot in the grave. But maybe we could see it as having one foot in Heaven instead? 

And while I’m still here — for how many ever days He sees fit — I want to bloom for my Maker. And I want my life to do more and more of this one thing: magnify His great name.

I want to live my life seeking
God’s plans
on God’s earth
for God’s glory and
God’s great name.

 Linking up again with Gypsy Mama for her five-minute Friday. She asks us to write for five minutes flat, without worrying about how it looks or sounds. (I confess. I spellcheck!) This is an invigorating exercise for a writer, and I encourage you to try. In fact, I shared this exercise with my college writing students this week when one of them asked for a cure to writers’ block. Care to join us over at Gypsy Mama’s place?