hold on, 40

 Oh man. 

I'm turning old next week. 

Don't start in on what a spring chicken I am. It's not really up for debate...this is a big one. 

When Mr. Henry, Lady Jane and I talked about it over cheesecake and coffee Sunday night while the kids all played cards with Ethan and Matt, I felt a little better.  Both in their nineties, forty didn't seem so monumental.

When Lady Jane was 40, her mama was dying and she remembers balancing little ones and an ailing mom and so that was that.  Mr. Henry and his first wife took some kind of a trip to celebrate, out west somewhere, he thinks. Forty was the last milestone birthday my mom got, and while a year and three kids ago, I thought I'd be celebrating this birthday something big...something glamorous...something with friends and something faraway for forty...well, it's here. 

I'll have seven kids home the full week of Thanksgiving/birthday week, good family friends from Jersey/Haiti coming for Thanksgiving weekend, along with several friends who are like us...no family in Mississippi...and hopefully, depending on how his scans at Cleveland Clinic go tomorrow, my dad and Cindy.  

I will be tired. And the house will be crazy. I will be cleaning and cooking and I will be wondering when I started looking so old...feeling so old...waking up twice a night with a baby and staying up late at night with four giggling tweens and at 6 am with a Ben who is going through some kinda hard 4 year old battle of the wills. I will be tempted to think about where I thought I'd be at 40...what I thought life would look like...how I thought I'd be celebrating...how I thought I would feel...what I thought maybe I'd earned or deserved...how lovely and exciting the lives of 40 year old friends look from my corner of the kitchen.

I will be tempted.

But I'm gonna fight it. 

I'm gonna fight it with all my old lady energy and wrinkles and just-had-a-baby pudge and fancy highlights that are actually just gray hair

I'm gonna fight it with spit-up on my shirt that my teenager is embarrassed by, with a mini-van full of goldfish crackers, random flip-flops, forgotten homework, and loud kids.

I'm gonna fight it with a meltdown toddler because I cut up his apple wrong, with an overflowing house (don't matter what house God puts us in, we just seem to overflow it), with a baby who cries every-single-time she's in the carseat until we arrive at someone's lesson, doctors appointment or drop-off, with every frumpy fiber of my old being.

I'm gonna fight it because there are people who longed and prayed for 40 and never got it. There are people who go and eat and travel the places I LONG to, who are longing for a houseful of messy children. I'm going to fight it because I am surrounded (constantly, incessantly :) with precious, precious gifts. I'm going to fight it because my dad might not be doing well, but he is such a good gift, and trying to come.

 I'm going to fight expectations and comparison and dissatisfaction because the Lord has brought--every single season of my life--good and true and godly and precious friends. I'm going to fight frustration and complaints because there are people praying for me...helping me...thinking of me...loving me...pointing me to Jesus. I'm going to fight it because those are the very best gifts of any life.  

I'm going to fight it because every single place and person I am and have,  He. Has. Given. Me.  Every wrinkle. Every child. Every struggle. Every burden. Every opportunity to stretch, and if He SEES me and KNOWS me and LOVES me and is anxious to use me in His unshakeable kingdom...just today...what in the world more could I be wanting?

If He's given me this precious work of reconciling His children to Himself, am I going to lament the way they're keeping me from the beach? If He's given me this healthy body, able to serve Him as He leads, am I going to loath it's dents and scars and mull over its wrinkles? If He's filled my gaps and then some, been strength in my many weaknesses, loved me better than I could ever possibly be loved, and been grace when I've been continually undeserving, I will celebrate 40 years of His faithfulness, even if I had not one other thing to celebrate. 

And when I forget, I will read this again.

When He gives you His perspective, hold on.