39

 A week ago I turned 39. I normally do fine with birthdays, but for the last couple years - about the time I realized how close I'm getting to 40 - I have been strangely uncomfortable with the whole getting older thing. 

In spite of having only a few romances in my approach to middle-age, I am mostly unbothered that I haven't been married yet or had my own babies. I also don't have any serious regrets, which is a pretty beautiful accomplishment at my age. I spent my 20's trying to come to grips with my own weaknesses and dysfunction and my 30's have been spent working on myself and then enjoying being healthy, happy and comfortable in my own skin. My life is good. I am happy. I have amazing relationships with friends and family and I'm living a life that would make me an absolute hero to my 19 and 29 year old selves.

Because it's just me and I've been doing my own thing for so many years I feel in some ways like my life is the same as it was when I was 25 and that makes it hard to gauge if my life is "successful". I don't have the normal benchmarks of seeing my kids growing up, or the tick marks I could make every wedding anniversary. I never finished college or university. I'm not a CEO, business or home owner. It's been years since I've even owned my own car. How do you gage the intangibles? How do you gain satisfaction with your life achievements when you can't list them on paper? How do you not let the world's definition of success discourage you and make you feel like you're a late bloomer that may never catch up? This is the tension.

I did some praying, thinking and soul-searching as I approached this birthday. I thought about all that has happened in my life and I thought about how some people look back and say that they wouldn't change a thing. I totally would. I would take away the things that really hurt - childhood abuse, watching my best friend's son die of cancer, betrayals, and maybe even a couple humiliating moments involving unrequited love.

Any part of life lived with a deficit of love leaves a mark. But it's ridiculous to think anyone could become who they are without being shaped by the pain of life. Strength is born of adversity, and there's no getting around it. so I celebrate the fact that love has won in the end, and no matter how much of my life is behind me, and how much of it was marked by heartache, the life that is still ahead is already marked with the giving and receiving of love.

In the end my birthday was a happy day and found me optimistic and excited about the next season of my life. It feels like I turned a page, or like I walked through a door and found a beautiful new horizon open before me. And most of all I feel more certain than at any other point in my life that my Father God adores me, that I'm His favorite, and that the best is yet to come.