So this week will mark the beginning of the last year that I can call myself 40 something. I'm felling a little of the mid-life crisis creep in a bit and asking myself some questions. How is it that I am staring at my fifties on the horizon? Didn't I just have my 40th birthday a couple of years ago? If this decade went by so quickly, how soon will I be looking at 60?
I have been thinking about life in seasons. I would like to think that maybe I'm just starting the fall season, but maybe it's really late fall...or winter. Forgive me if this seems morbid, but I realized that none of us really know what season we are in. We assume that a child of 8 is in the springtime of their life, but experience tells us that some of them, due to cancer, accidents or abuse, are in the throws of winter. All of this has caused me to stop for a moment and evaluate what the next season of life will look like. What lessons can I learn from my past mistakes and from those who have gone before me?
One thing keeps coming to mind...end marks. When I was homeschooling our kids, the English curriculum that we used taught a little ditty about the parts of a sentence and we learned that no sentence is complete without an end mark. If my life is a sentence, what end mark will it have?
I hope it won't be a question mark. I pray there is no doubt about where I will be when I leave this earth. I have total faith that I will spend eternity in the absolute presence of Almighty God. I hope there will be no question for the people that I love that I loved them dearly and wholeheartedly even when I didn't express it. I hope there is no question about what I believed in and why I spent my time and energy doing the things I did.
I also hope that my life doesn't end with a period. To me, a period seems like the end to a life that just lived day to day with no real lasting legacy, no purpose, no passion and no real effect on the rest of the world. She lived...she died...period.
I have decided that I want to end it with an exclamation point! (I have noticed that I use a lot of these in my writing!) I want to end up using every ounce of talent, energy, ability, passion and life that God gave me. I want to go out saying that I spent it all...and had a ball doing it.
I remember seeing a speaker one time talk about living life on the balance beam and how so many people just want to sit on the beam holding on for dear life just waiting for it to be over...never risking taking a walk on it, much less a jump, for fear that they might fall off. I don't want to just walk on it, I want to do a back flip...and if I fall, I'll get right back up and try again. But when the music ends and it's time to dismount, I want to do a triple flip and land right at the feet of Jesus. I want the Father, Son and Spirit to hold up three '10's'...not because I did it perfectly, but because I made the effort and spent everything I had to please them.
I fear that I've been sitting on the beam a bit...just enduring life...gritting my teeth and just getting through it hoping that the next season has a little more sunshine that thunderstorms. I also realize that I've been holding back...I haven't spent all of my love, affection, encouragement, affirmation and approval. If my life was over today, there are some areas that would end with just a period. I want to figure out how to change that.
I have one more year in my forties..."Lord willin' and the creek don't rise". I want God to fix my focus and have my feet follow. I have only been on a balance beam a few times in my life and one thing I know...if you spend all of your time looking at your feet on the beam, you are sure to fall. You have to look up and trust the feel of those four inches under your feet.
I don't know how much longer the music will play, but as long as it's still going, I want to have a blast trying to perfect my routine. I want to land that triple flip on both feet...hands high in the air!!!
And end with and exclamation point!
