Monday, May 30, 2016

Turning 50.... it's not so bad!

This morning I started my day by reading the words on this card from my Mother about turning 50.

"Turning fifty means looking back at the choices you’ve made, the places you’ve been and embracing the amazing person they’ve helped you become- It means wearing your confidence like a smile and striding through your life- regret-free, fearless, and purposeful.
Turning fifty means appreciating just how far you’ve traveled, yet realizing the best of the best is yet to come….
It means wrapping yourself in happiness and celebrating every minute of being fifty as if it were the best time of your life- because it truly is."

I loved hearing these words!  I have been dreading this day for a very long time.  I certainly don't feel 50 but as I do the math I guess it is true!  As I went running this morning I prayed and thought back over the last 50 years of my life.  I have truly been blessed!  Here are some of the things I praised God for this morning:  God has been faithful, God's Love, answered prayer, good family heritage, great parents and sister to grow up with, salvation, my wonderful husband and children, extended family, great friends over all the years and all over the world, a great ministry in college, in churches, and now in Zambia.  I am so thankful for the life He has given me!  Turning 50 hasn't been so bad so far!  
Every year on my birthday I read Psalm 139.  It's below if you have never read it.  God's Word never gets old, it's new every morning!

 

Psalm 139

For the director of music. Of David. A psalm.

You have searched me, Lord,
    and you know me.
You know when I sit and when I rise;
    you perceive my thoughts from afar.
You discern my going out and my lying down;
    you are familiar with all my ways.
Before a word is on my tongue
    you, Lord, know it completely.
You hem me in behind and before,
    and you lay your hand upon me.
Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
    too lofty for me to attain.
Where can I go from your Spirit?
    Where can I flee from your presence?
If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
    if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
    if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10 even there your hand will guide me,
    your right hand will hold me fast.
11 If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
    and the light become night around me,”
12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;
    the night will shine like the day,
    for darkness is as light to you.
13 For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
    when I was made in the secret place,
    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
    all the days ordained for me were written in your book
    before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
    they would outnumber the grains of sand—
    when I awake, I am still with you.
19 If only you, God, would slay the wicked!
    Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
20 They speak of you with evil intent;
    your adversaries misuse your name.
21 Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord,
    and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
22 I have nothing but hatred for them;
    I count them my enemies.
23 Search me, God, and know my heart;
    test me and know my anxious thoughts.
24 See if there is any offensive way in me,
    and lead me in the way everlasting.

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