Several weeks ago when I was looking at myself in the mirror, I became alarmed. My gaze fell on my something shiny and bright peeking through my hairline. Gray hair. Two to be exact. At 32, the aging process has found my calling card.

Each night after my discovery, I searched through my hair to see if any more had appeared and was disappointed every time I saw that they had. I’m sure everyone has touchpoints throughout their lives when they realize that they’re getting older. This has been one of mine. As a licensed cosmetologist, I’m aware I can stage a cover-up of the external aging reality up to a certain point. As a human being, I’m more aware now than I want to be that aging is inevitable.

In complete contradiction, I was telling someone last week that I am so grateful to be out of my twenties and into my thirties. I wouldn’t trade knowing what I know now with what I didn’t know then. Wisdom is a gift.

As I have been facing my own aging, being a parent continues to remind me that it’s not just me. Griffin lost his first tooth last month, and my emotions went into conflict with one another. I celebrated with Griff on his milestone, knowing there would be many more loose teeth to come. As I locked eyes with his new smile, I searched for the baby I had years ago. A growing boy proudly beamed back at me, and the phrase, “The days are long, but the years are short.” flashed through my memory.

Time is so finite.

I’ve spent a lot of hours in hospital rooms lately. And I’m learning that growing old eventually leads to greater dependence on other people. It’s been an honor and a privilege to be one of those people for my family. And I know that someday, I’ll have a head full of more than two gray hairs and a body that doesn’t work as well as it does now. The toothless boy I care for now may be taking care of me. And that’s humbling to think about.

How strange it is to think about life linearly. To know that all the memories I have are fixed. Each day offers only the opportunity to move forward and create new recollections.

Leave it to me to find gray hair with a magnifying glass and spring into crisis management over my life. As always, when I am thinking of dramatic titles to use if my life were a movie, the Lord usually gives me a word or phrase to meditate on instead.

Jesus must have understood how much I was thinking about growing old, my kids growing up, watching my parents age as they care for their aging parents…because he gave me Isaiah 26:4.

Trust in Adonai forever,
for the LORD Adonai is a Rock of ages.

Rock of ages. I’m no Bible scholar, but I dearly love how some translations say “of ages”. My sons, my parents, my grandparents, me. The Lord is sovereign over our every decade because he is in control forever. How comforting it is that one thing is constant. He’s the everlasting rock.

The concept of aging has pushed me to process a full range of emotions the last two weeks. I’ve laughed when it seemed I should be crying. I’ve cried when I was trying to hold it in. I’ve been quiet without trying. I’ve had things I’ve wanted to say and I’ve struggled to know what to say.

So many silent prayers have only been three words: Rock of Ages. Sometimes it’s all I can offer. But it fixes me on a future filled with hope. For me. For my family who have walked with Jesus for decades. I’m so grateful we have hope beyond our years.

While I draw this fleeting breath, 
when mine eyes shall close in death, 
when I soar to worlds unknown, 
see thee on thy judgment throne, 
Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 
let me hide myself in thee.
Rock of Ages, Reverend Augustus Montague Toplady, 1776

Take care & take heart,

Telling the truth about ourselves can be hard. The wisest people I’ve known have comfortably admitted that they’re not as self-aware as they think they are, and that’s what gives way for growth.

It’s growing season for me.

Recently, I received feedback from several colleagues on what it’s like to be on the other side of me. The past two weeks have allowed me to hear their summaries of me and ask for examples. Today, I had another opportunity over lunch to learn how I come across to others. I have concluded that the people closest to me believe strongly that I am always frustrated. Often upset. Regularly angry. Most accurately–that I lack joy in anything they can see. And the evidence shows that they see quite a lot.

I’ll confess that I find this severely devastating.

I’ve always thought that I’ve approached life with extreme effort and that my endeavors should count for something. Good intentions, at the very least. Until last week, I was unaware of just how my desire for structure and order produced visible irritation. What is becoming clearer is that where my work is concerned, internally and externally, fruit is hard for others to find.

Not impossible. But challenging to identify in every day interactions.

What is most confusing for me is that the emotions I feel versus the emotions others perceive continuously misalign. I don’t mean to blow routine feedback out of proportion and completely collapse in on myself. What I am trying to do is make sure I’m not listening to my own narration of events more closely than the people who consistently experience me in various forms. I’d like to ensure I stop proving Einstein’s definition of insanity right.

So the question becomes one of how. As someone who said yes to walking with Jesus 21 years ago, I have recurrently wondered what “choosing joy” truly means in practice and why it is so difficult to achieve. If I feel any spiritual failure deeply, it is this one.

Driving home earlier, I remembered Griffin singing as he played in the kitchen last night. “Receive joyyyyyyy! Receive joy!” He pulled out lyrics from the bridge of a treasured song.

Receive it.

Receive joy.

That implies that it’s being given to me. I don’t have to search for it. I only need to change my posture from closed to unfolded. Head up. Palms open.

When I am told things about myself that ruins the image I wish others had of me.
Head up. Palms open.

When I work incredibly hard to implement solutions to the feedback and I still come up short.
Head up. Palms open.

When I have a positive outlook on my day, but no one notices the change in my spirit.
Head up. Palms open.

What if the practice of better posture is the thing that produces the joy? What if the compound effect of being a gracious receiver of whatever comes my way eventually is lasting joy?

I don’t have any other ideas yet on how to bring about transformational change. Maybe that’s the entire point. To not fight for control. To start by receiving what’s being extended to me as a tool for growth. Surely, there’s a joy to be found in gaining wisdom. At the very least, gratitude.

So Lord, thank you for the people who were willing to share the truth about me, to me. Thank you for what I am learning in this pruning season. Help me to hold it up to the light of your correction with confidence that you’ll lead me into transformational change. That you’ll produce the fruit in me. Help me become a faithful receiver. Amen.

Take care & take heart,