[ad_1]
I’m 50 years previous for yet another month, and I’m confused about how I really feel about it. On the day of my birthday final June, I used to be excited; I had assumed I might be dissatisfied by being 50, however I wasn’t. The day was a celebration of a life I used to be deeply grateful for. How superb it’s, I reasoned, that I had been capable of be alive for this lengthy.
This lifetime of a lot magnificence and goodness. This lifetime of a lot revolt and studying the laborious method.
My life thus far has been one lengthy wrestling match with God. Am I okay? Sure. Am I sufficient? Sure. Do You see me? Sure. Am I beloved?
My mother instructed me years in the past, on her birthday, that ageing was unusual in that she feels, inside, like she is identical person who she has at all times been—and but, with every birthday, she feels additional away from that particular person, too. It’s not solely our our bodies ageing that mess with our self-perception—the aches and pains of them not working like they used to after we have been youthful; it’s also how life’s challenges have an effect on our resilience and religion. Can I nonetheless be joy-filled when my circumstances really feel an excessive amount of to bear? Can I nonetheless rejoice with hope amidst struggling and self-doubt and fatigue?
As we age, can we develop extra resilient—after which appreciative of life with all of its goodness and strife? Or can we develop extra exhausted, the eager for heaven intensifying every day? Growing old messes with one’s id, for certain.
Who am I now? Who was I then? Given the reality of who I’m, I can solely discover by my distorted self; how do my age, life experiences, and knowledge have an effect on my interpretation of my value?
Getting older is such a complicated enterprise—one I don’t have in any respect found out.
Listed here are a number of the questions I’ve supplied these days to God:
Am I nonetheless the identical particular person you really liked once I was youthful, Father?
With all of my life experiences—and as I age—I really feel a bit disoriented—distant from the particular person I used to be, and unfamiliar with who I’m now. Am I battling with disgrace towards my ageing? Am I idolizing youth?
I believe I’m wrestling with ageing being a kind of issues I can’t management. I can’t cease it, and that makes me scared. Deep down, I really feel like I’m value much less every year I get older—just like the issues one does when they’re youthful carry extra weight and price than one thing one accomplishes at 50.
Writing a e book at age 20 versus age 50. Operating a marathon. Climbing a mountain. Caring for a beloved one. Creating artwork. All the pieces I do now, at age 50, I want I did then. It’s because it appears like what I do now, at this age, is value lower than it might have been value at age 20 or 30, or 40.
It’s not that I’m very dissatisfied that my physique, face, pores and skin, and hair—all of my bodily look—are worn and older, even whereas my physique aches greater than it used to. However I don’t like that I really feel at odds with who I’m. I really feel disorientated generally—unfamiliar, in a method, with my present self.
I acknowledge that our world doesn’t assist me respect my age. With the message that “youthful is best,” I really feel like I’m in a relentless battle of telling myself that “all the pieces is okay; you might be okay.”
Maybe this act of wrestling and confusion brings us nearer to God, for as we get older, we could have a better understanding—and appreciation for—all that we don’t perceive.
Could we be calmed by the One who created us. Could God’s love outline for us what’s new and delightful and good. Amen.
After all, I can’t finish it right here: I’ve discovered higher—for isn’t this only one aspect of a dialog? And don’t we really feel higher—after we’ve achieved our greatest to be open and weak with our hearts—after we now pay attention for what God desires to say to us in response?
Oh, Father, we all know you could have an opinion right here . . .
Sister, as He speaks to you, what do you hear Him say?
It is humorous how our unconscious wrestles with questions lengthy earlier than we’d acknowledge them–and provides them the honour they deserve. This morning, as I prayed, I opened my journal to a poem I had written three weeks in the past and forgotten about. I had titled it “My Life,” which caught my consideration, and it felt like a letter from myself to myself–an commentary, an try to have interaction with the language of my very own coronary heart. I’ve shared the poem with you beneath.
It’s value listening to our hearts, do not you suppose?
So, here is my query to you immediately: Would you wish to proceed writing poetry with me–not as a result of we aspire to be essentially the most superb poets (though you simply is perhaps precisely that!)–however as a result of writing poetry or journaling (with phrases or with artwork) is perhaps highly effective instruments to entry–and honor–our hearts?
Sure? Are you in? Let me know by leaving a remark beneath.
And, if you’d love to do some writing with me this present day, how about contemplating this query–an thought to ponder by both writing to your self in your journal–or writing a poem:
And would you wish to share your poem as a remark right here?
Lastly, keep tuned for an additional place I am establishing for journaling and poetry lovers, a spot the place we get to share our coronary heart wrestling (writing) collectively!
Love,
We fear if we quantity to something
–when does a gesture of kindness land,
or a present, a sacrifice of the center?
Does its value equal what the recipient decides,
–otherwise you, what about you?
For my coronary heart is troubled,
empty fingers requiring belief
really feel weak, ill-equipped to discern
what sort of life is extra proper than one other
however who decides? Who is aware of?
This put up appeared initially at jennifer.camp
[ad_2]
