Writer’s note: I first started writing this post in June 2024. It is now February 2025. The words have just been sitting in my Drafts folder….taking up space. It is time to declutter the folder.
Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.Psalm 90:12 (NIV)
A few years ago, a couple friend sent me a card for my birthday. If I remember correctly, it was for my 50th birthday – a big milestone for me. In the card, they quoted Psalm 90, verse 12.
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When I was turning 50, it was a big deal. I’m not even sure why, but I think it was because of how “culture” thinks of it. Making a big deal of a number, age, wasn’t always a huge thing for me. 40 was 40, 30 was 30, 20 was 20. 10, well that was a big deal. Why I remember that I don’t know, but I do remember the notion of double digits. That seemed so BIG!!!
But 50?
I’ve read social posts. I’ve seen online articles about how some look at turning 40 or 50 as “over the hill”. I must have gotten this in my head. I remember writing a bucket list. It was not about what I wanted to do. It was more about how I wanted to change before I turned 50.
In 2018, I wrote a post about the “50” journey in my post, “What’s Holding You Back?” I was about to turn 50 and our youngest was 18 months away from leaving for college. Empty nest was in my future. I wrote, “As the birthday gets closer – let’s be real here, y’all – I’m struggling. Struggling with who I am and who will I be once the last one is gone.”
Hooboy…did I ever struggle?
I’ve had some days where I’m flat-out excited for the journey. And then there’s been days like the last few weeks – I’m yelling at God on my walks. Or, I’m on my knees crying and feeling all out of sorts.
Yes, I yell at God sometimes.
There’s no sense trying to hide my anger, frustration, disappointment from Him. He knows and sees it all anyway, so might as well work through the feelings with Him, right?
I’m not yelling at Him in an accusatory way. He knows that. I’m just yelling because I know no one else will love me through the process quite like Him. Keeping it inside doesn’t do me any good.
Did I mention the word “struggle”?
50!
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A year after I turned 50, our youngest went off to college. We became empty-nesters. Me being me, I had to write it out in a post titled, “Soul Searching the Empty Nest“. Reading it again, I think this pretty much sums it up.
My soul will one day reside in heaven. I will stand before God and give an account for my life. If I’m being honest, parts of it right now at this point in time won’t be pretty. Thankfully, there is Jesus.
Now 56, I sometimes wonder what happened to that woman.
I don’t mean it in a negative way. Really, I don’t. I re-read some of what I wrote around that time. It includes both published and unpublished work. I am amazed at how far I have come. The insecurity that I felt back then was so prevalent in my writing.
Too insecure to try new things. Too insecure to travel by myself. Too insecure to stand up for myself….yet. I was a Christian. Still, my own fears imprisoned me. My own perceptions, beliefs, and everything else trapped me.
I was also too insecure to believe that God could ever truly restore me. And yet….HE DID IT!
Today when I look in the mirror, I am confident. Not in who I am or think I should be, but more so in God. I trust the Lord (September 2023).
Now that’s not to say that I don’t have struggles, challenges, storms, or troubles. The enemy of my soul would like nothing more for me to crumble under the weight of the things I face, and have faced. There were times when I wanted to quit – in fact, I did quit church for a while. But our gracious Heavenly Father loved me back into His fold, His church, His body…and His presence.
Thanks to the Lord, I am still here.
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Much has happened in these last six-plus years. I am not the same person. One thing I’ve learned is to be content, even when my flesh says otherwise.
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
Philippians 4:11-13 (NKJV)
Six years ago, I believed I had to do this and that. I thought it was necessary to “be” somebody in the eyes of the Lord. I thought I had to “do” things and “look” a certain way for Him to use me…which, at its core, is more about how I appeared to others more than how I appeared to God.
All of that was based in insecurity. I didn’t like who I was. I felt like I was a failure because I hadn’t “done” anything special for the Lord.
God, in His loving way, brought Philippians 4 to my mind. Paul is writing about contentment. He learned to be content.
But how do you do that? Learn to be content?
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Recently, I attended a worship school in California. I started out feeling content, but by week’s end contentment had flown out the window. Imagine that. No contentment at a worship school.
Over the last few days, I’ve had time to think about the past week’s events. Reflection is good for the soul. It’s how we learn about ourselves, and if we’re honest, and about God too. For all the talk about contentment, even after the time of worship, I realized that I was not content.
I have a ways to go in that area. And you know what? I’m okay with that.
Not that I’m okay with discontentment, but rather, that I have more to learn. I have more to learn by sitting at His feet. I have more to learn by reading His word. I have more to learn about Him. I have more to learn to actually be His bride.
I am His. I am not my own. What is it that Paul says in 1 Corinthians 6:20? We were “bought with a price”. So we do what? Glorify God with our bodies, which includes our mind. We glorify God in our learning.
Paul was constantly learning. You don’t get to the point that he was at by not being a learner. He learned about the Lord. He shared what God was sharing with him. He never arrived at some super-Christian level. He dove into all that God had for him, including being arrested and beaten.
He learned how to be content in the knowing and not knowing.
That is the key! Be willing to learn in what you know and what you don’t know. We can have contentment in the midst of still learning what that actually means.
No matter what age we are at in life, never stop learning about God.
Teach us to number our days,
that we may gain a heart of wisdom.Psalm 90:12 (NIV)
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Sunny Cadwallader 
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