I was dropping Molly off at school one day last year. Normally, the principal would be out front, opening car doors and greeting children as they entered the building. This day, however, a woman I had seen around but didn’t know was the welcoming committee.
When I asked Molly who she was, she couldn’t give me a name, but she did offer a job description.
“I think she helps people who are having trouble,” she said.
Several months ago, Randy began the time-consuming task of transferring many years’ worth of home videos to our desktop computer so he can later burn them to DVDs.
There was no quick way to do this. Every minute of every tape had to be played on the camcorder so it could be digitally captured and saved on the computer.
The computer is in our basement family room, which was in the beginning stages of being remodeled. It was chilly down there, and seating options around the office desk were sparse.
But Lilly and Molly weren’t deterred. As Randy worked on the family room, the girls sat watching those tapes unfold for hours. At times, all four of us crowded around the desk, talking, laughing and occasionally cringing as we relived memory after sweet memory.
A few random things stood out to me as I watched.
Lilly never, ever stopped moving.
Molly always seemed to be coughing.
And my hair was different in every scene.
I went through a phase in my 30s where my brown locks kept getting lighter and lighter, sometimes with streaks of red and purple thrown in for good measure. The color was expertly done, and the hair itself was pretty, but I never liked how my skin looked with it.
At the same time, my naturally curly hair was mostly shorter and often cut to look best straight, which also was not my first preference.
Around the time I hit 40, however, I decided to stop fighting the curls. I started looking for a stylist who would work with them, not straighten my hair whenever I went in for a cut. I also began wearing my hair longer and in a shade much closer to my original brunette roots.
I don’t know exactly why I waited so long to embrace the mane God gave me. Looking back, though, I think what I finally experienced might be indicative of the freedom that often comes with middle age.
When I was younger, I was so wrapped up in my own immediate insecurities and issues that I didn’t really think much about future decades. I had good friends who were in their 40s and older, but that season of life seemed so far away and even a bit scary.
Now that I’m there myself, it’s not scary at all. I don’t feel old or washed up, like I once feared I would. If anything, I’m more confident, more secure in who I am, and much more accepting of what I’m not good at than I ever used to be.
I still have plenty of struggles, of course. It’s just different somehow. And I don’t think I’m the only one with this perspective, either.
Take my friend Beth, for example. After staying at home when her kids were younger, she went back to school at age 47 because she had a dream of becoming a teacher. Now this empathetic Army mom teaches kindergarten at a school on a military base.
Beth was a faithful participant in a class I taught at church recently. One week, when we were discussing the comparison trap, she made some observations that were so powerful I asked her to put them down on paper for me.
She graciously obliged, and today, I want to share them with you. My prayer is that her words will be life-giving and hope-filled for women of any age who might be looking ahead to future decades with fear and trepidation.
Here’s what she wrote:
When I turned 40, I remember thinking, “You know what? This is who I am.” In my 20s and 30s, I felt like I was always wishing, longing or striving to be like other people I really admired—or a trait about them that I thought I should have or wanted to have.
At 40, I realized, “What you see is what you get.” It wasn’t a “giving up” or a feeling of failure, but instead a new freedom to accept myself for who God made me to be—my physical characteristics, my spiritual gifting and personality, my socio-economic status—all of it. God made me who I am—the good, the bad and the ugly—to use me as He sees fit. He didn’t make me to be like someone else.
And it’s not that I think I am perfect the way I am now, either. I know that God is still working on me—cleansing me, healing me and forgiving me so that I can be more like Him. I know that He is a God of miracles and can do anything in my life He chooses. I am very open to those changes that He might choose to make.
I am just done trying to change myself into something or someone I was never meant to be. It is also much freer and joyful to celebrate those things in others that I thought I should have or be, when I am accepting of who God made me to be. Rejoicing with a pure heart is so freeing and fulfilling!
I don’t know if what transpired in Beth’s life happens to everyone. Generally speaking, though, I think she’s on to something. It’s called growth, and when God is at the center of it, it’s a beautiful, lifelong process.
♥ Lois
I don’t have much to say about the Song of the Month for August other than this.
If you’re shakily poised on the cusp of something new, if the way ahead is murky, if the unknown looms large, if you know what you’re supposed to do but lack the confidence to plow ahead, “Frontiers” by Vertical Church Band is for you.
I started blogging when my daughters were well past their preschool years and I don’t often write about parenting subjects. While I am a mom who blogs, I’ve never considered myself to be a “mommy blogger.”
After last week’s post about what I wish someone would have said to me during a particularly grueling season of motherhood, though, it seemed to make sense to continue this theme a bit longer.
A few weeks ago, while searching on my computer for something I wrote several years ago, I ran across a file from August 2008 titled “What I Wish.”
I don’t recall every detail from when my children were small, but I clearly remember writing this piece. Lilly had just started first grade. The year before, she had attended morning kindergarten and usually took a much-needed nap in the afternoon. Now that she was going to school all day, the nap was no longer possible.
Earlier this year, I led a women’s study at my church about how God uses the hard things in our lives to make us more useful.
Although we covered a broad range of topics over the course of 10 weeks, one that stands out for me was the session about the wilderness—that dry, desolate landscape that has the potential to transform our hearts like nothing else.
I’ve spent a few long seasons in the wilderness, so it was a deeply personal class for me. But the stories I shared from my own life were merely an entry point for the women in the class to consider their own experiences with this exhausting and often-confusing place.
We talked about what the wilderness looks like, why it’s so hard and why God allows us to linger there. I closed the class with the following thoughts about the wilderness. It’s by no means an exhaustive summary, but if you are trudging through a desert of your own right now, I hope it provides perspective and encouragement for you today.
• Every Christian goes through wilderness experiences, some more than others.
• God is sovereign over the wilderness. He tests us and may allow sifting, but whatever happens, we are never completely at the mercy of Satan.
• Sometimes we don’t know we’re in the wilderness until we’re well into it.
• When we’re in the wilderness, we need to accept the fact that we are there and might be there for quite some time.
• Not every hard or inconvenient thing is the wilderness.
• Sometimes the wilderness is difficult because it’s so intense; sometimes it’s the length of time is that makes it hard.
• When we are at the end of our rope in the wilderness, God will strengthen us.
• When we get a respite in the wilderness, we should try to enjoy it. Cue a verse I’ve loved forever: “Then they came to Elim where there were twelve springs of water and seventy date palms, and they camped there beside the waters.” (Exodus 15:27)
• Life goes on in the wilderness. Just because we’re there doesn’t mean we’re going to be miserable all the time.
• While in the wilderness, we should remember that God is with us, but not expect Him to live up to our expectations of what He will look like or do.
• Things are not always as they seem in the wilderness. Just as deserts have mirages, so our foggy minds can play tricks on us. Cue another verse that is one of my go-to prayers: “Send Your light and Your truth; let them lead me.” (Psalm 43:3)
• When we’re at our lowest points—laid bare with no idea how to move forward—we need to claw through to the realization that God is enough.
• If we are in the wilderness due to no fault of our own, its because our loving heavenly Father deems it necessary. It’s the right place to be if He has allowed us to be there.
• If we get there because we’ve run away or made bad choices, God is still there. We need to move toward Him; He will redeem.
• God leads us and takes care of us in the wilderness, even when sin puts us there.
• God uses the wilderness to do His transforming work.
• It may be hard to see except in retrospect, but one heart issue that God often deals with in the wilderness is pride.
• When we’re in the wilderness, the work we’re best at or value most may need to be set aside, temporarily and perhaps even permanently.
• Some wilderness experiences end victoriously; some end quietly.
• Even when we can see the wilderness in our rear view mirror, we may never be completely “over it.” Scars and sadness may always serve as reminders of where we’ve been and how it has affected us.
• The wilderness will change us, so our ministries may be completely different once we leave than they were before we got there. Remember: God doesn’t just have one assignment for us in life; He gives us different ones during different seasons.
• When the rough terrain becomes smooth again, we need to appreciate where we are, which is NOT in the wilderness.
Now that you’ve read my list, I would love to know: What has the wilderness taught you that you may not have learned somewhere else?
♥ Lois
P.S. Linking up this week with Kelly Balarie at Purposeful Faith, Jennifer Dukes Lee at #TellHisStory, Holley Gerth at Coffee for Your Heart, Lyli Dunbar at #ThoughtProvokingThursday, Crystal Twaddell at #FreshMarketFriday and Dawn Klinge at Grace & Truth.