Aging in the impossible age of hope
The furrowed brow climbing in a straight line in the middle of my 30-year-old forehead
Crow’s feet extending from the corners of my eyes seemingly too soon in life
Does that come from the worry or the equator or the mixed joy I feel from it all, that I get to live this crazy life?
Or are those all so synonymously combined that I can’t really tell the difference anymore
The crossing of cultures, causing a squinting across my eyes and across my heart
Yearning to see through both the direct equatorial sunlight and through the confusion of a new country
A country and people I deeply love yet to who I don’t fully belong
The grooves across my midsection
That point to nothing short of a couple different miracles
A few miracles, really, counting the one who is with Jesus now
The unnamed, fully known little life who would have been in Kindergarten this year
And yet another one who most likely, right now, stretches their bio mommy’s tummy in the same way
And we pray for her, the mother of the one who will make me mommy to my children’s future sibling
While also praying for my precious child painted in magnificent ebony who is painfully not yet in my arms
I think of those who aren’t marked with the same scars
But who also have lines elsewhere, seen and unseen:
The one line on yet another test where there should be two
The underlines in their Text of God’s promises and character as they trust in His goodness that’s not dependent on circumstance
The waiting in lines at doctor’s offices and waiting at His throne, afraid to even still ask
But still asking all the same
Lines forever etched on their hearts as they walk through impossible requests and waiting and hurting
I see them and ache alongside and look in awe at their continued faith
And I cannot help but long for this hope of glory more and more
As my years gain in traction
In parallel with the gaining hardships I see unfold around me
Oh, if this were it; all my eyes could see being the end
How hopeless would I be
Yet I feel and know deep within that it is not
Some days in the whispering of my everyday in between the sibling squabbles and endless dishes and adoption paperwork
Others in the desperate cries at services and vulnerable church invitations for prayer
All of us clinging, somehow, to the truths we read and beg of Him to be true
And I like Peter groan to my Friend
‘But Jesus, where else could I go?
For you, oh Lord, you alone have the words of life’…
Because I’ve seen and experienced those words of life securing my heart and mind more fully as I grow older
Heart-restoring and soul-pumping Life here in this arduous, glorious side of heaven
I fix my eyes on what is unseen
This hope anchoring my soul to the not yet
To my Savior beckoning me deeper into both the now and the later
The scars of our aging bodies, hearts, lives shaping us to be who we are
Stronger in the Lord than we were yesterday and last year and the years before that
So I remind myself as I struggle to believe- Yes, you can rejoice in the creases and the years, the lines and the grays
Louder and louder crying, ‘Come, Lord Jesus’ while also rejoicing more and more with each passing year- come what may- that we are still, somehow, and will always be… His
In the right now, in the aging years to follow, and in the glorious eternity to come
Crow’s feet extending from the corners of my eyes seemingly too soon in life
Does that come from the worry or the equator or the mixed joy I feel from it all, that I get to live this crazy life?
Or are those all so synonymously combined that I can’t really tell the difference anymore
The crossing of cultures, causing a squinting across my eyes and across my heart
Yearning to see through both the direct equatorial sunlight and through the confusion of a new country
A country and people I deeply love yet to who I don’t fully belong
The grooves across my midsection
That point to nothing short of a couple different miracles
A few miracles, really, counting the one who is with Jesus now
The unnamed, fully known little life who would have been in Kindergarten this year
And yet another one who most likely, right now, stretches their bio mommy’s tummy in the same way
And we pray for her, the mother of the one who will make me mommy to my children’s future sibling
While also praying for my precious child painted in magnificent ebony who is painfully not yet in my arms
I think of those who aren’t marked with the same scars
But who also have lines elsewhere, seen and unseen:
The one line on yet another test where there should be two
The underlines in their Text of God’s promises and character as they trust in His goodness that’s not dependent on circumstance
The waiting in lines at doctor’s offices and waiting at His throne, afraid to even still ask
But still asking all the same
Lines forever etched on their hearts as they walk through impossible requests and waiting and hurting
I see them and ache alongside and look in awe at their continued faith
And I cannot help but long for this hope of glory more and more
As my years gain in traction
In parallel with the gaining hardships I see unfold around me
Oh, if this were it; all my eyes could see being the end
How hopeless would I be
Yet I feel and know deep within that it is not
Some days in the whispering of my everyday in between the sibling squabbles and endless dishes and adoption paperwork
Others in the desperate cries at services and vulnerable church invitations for prayer
All of us clinging, somehow, to the truths we read and beg of Him to be true
And I like Peter groan to my Friend
‘But Jesus, where else could I go?
For you, oh Lord, you alone have the words of life’…
Because I’ve seen and experienced those words of life securing my heart and mind more fully as I grow older
Heart-restoring and soul-pumping Life here in this arduous, glorious side of heaven
I fix my eyes on what is unseen
This hope anchoring my soul to the not yet
To my Savior beckoning me deeper into both the now and the later
The scars of our aging bodies, hearts, lives shaping us to be who we are
Stronger in the Lord than we were yesterday and last year and the years before that
So I remind myself as I struggle to believe- Yes, you can rejoice in the creases and the years, the lines and the grays
Louder and louder crying, ‘Come, Lord Jesus’ while also rejoicing more and more with each passing year- come what may- that we are still, somehow, and will always be… His
In the right now, in the aging years to follow, and in the glorious eternity to come
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