For better or worse

In just a few days, I'll be exactly 6 months past my 50 birthday. Recently, we celebrated the 28th anniversary of our wedding. It's been 33 years since I arrived in the United States My youngest son is a senior in high school this year. What's my point? I guess all these numbers seem to mean that I "should" be all grown up and done with what appears to be petty little whiny grievances on my part. I'm too fat, I'm not productive enough. I'm not socially polished. I'm certainly not successful by standards of career and money. I'm all of 50 and still often feel as competent as when I was 5. I'm still looking up to all the big people in my life wishing I could be like them...wishing I could be one of them. Except that now, some of those big people are younger than me; quite a bit younger. Everyone around me looks so confident, easy with people and able to function so well in this place and time. Me? I still trip over my own feet and my own passion.

In a month, we'll observe the 9th anniversary of our son's death. I have learned more in the last nine years about living, faith, God, community and love than I learned in the previous 41 years all put together. It hasn't been comfortable learning but it's been learning. I know I've been transformed. I know I've been loved more than I deserve. But the more i know, the more capable and qualified I get, the less confidence I have, the less I know. I feel like I'm paddling forward but my kayak is going backwards.

Of course there is no magic age at which one arrives at a particular stage. Hans seems to have done what he came to do in just 11 1/2 short years. Meanwhile, it took my mother nearly 89 years to get her life all laid out. So I can challenge myself on the number thing. But do I have to be the clumsiest oaf in the neighborhood?

If you live in my neck of the woods, you might see a roundish, middle-aged woman walking down the street with scars on her knees and shins and gaping holes in her ego. It might be me or there might be more than one of us out there walking around downwind from Eden. For better or for worse, we're here trying to make our way; albeit messy and confusing. And for whatever reason we can't seem to see the light that brightens more confident folks. Please be patient. I do get hints that we will get there, that i'll get there. I just might need more time than some.

Blessings to you all, and especially to those with skinned knees.

jules