14 thoughts on turning 40

Forty is a landmark.

No big deal was made of today, but I feel like it is a big deal. I'm forty. I've been thinking a lot about what that means.

Here's fourteen of my thoughts and desires upon turning 40:

1.  According to the average life expectancy of a woman in the U.S.  I've lived half my life already.

2.  According to the Bible that's about half the life of hot breath on a cold window-  a fraction of a vapor.

Indeed, You have made my days [as] handbreadths, And my age [is] as nothing before You; Certainly every man at his best state [is] but vapor. Selah -Psalm 39:5

3.  If I'm half way through my life, I'm taking on the motto, "It's all uphill from here!"  Not downhill.  I want the high country for the last half.  I don't want to coast my way to the end.

4.  Forty feels... comfortable in my own skin with a deep ache for Who I was made for.

5.  I want the gospel of Christ to be more precious, and treasured, and beautiful to me than ever before.

6.  I want to love my husband well.

7.  I remember standing in the bathroom, looking at my 13 year old self in the mirror thinking, "I wonder what I'll look like when I'm 30?"  I never even thought I'd be forty.

8.  I want to speak of Christ and the good news of what he's done to reconcile man to God boldly and with love.

9.  I want to be rid of the fear of man.  It's snare has been attached to my foot too many of these forty years.

10.  I want to learn how to use power tools.

11.  I want to plant a garden and reap a harvest.

12.  I want my kids to see God's power to save!  "Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children." -Psalm 90:16

13.  "And you shall remember that the LORD your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you [and] test you, to know what [was] in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not." - Deut. 8:2

14.  Moses was simply a dweller for forty years before God made him a deliverer.   "Then, at this saying, Moses fled and became a dweller in the land of Midian, where he had two sons.  And when forty years had passed, an Angel of the Lord appeared to him in a flame of fire in a bush, in the wilderness of Mount Sinai." - Acts 7:30

This is only the beginning.  You can do anything God... even with a half breath like me.  I want to be spent for You!  Apart from you I can't do that.  May the last half of my days bring you more glory than the first.

 Quieted,

Sheila