Forty’s coming quickly,

in perhaps a few days from this one.

And it unnerves me deep

a visceral and sudden sweeping in of time and life

wrapped up in blurs of days and years and seasons

and this week past has been just this

silent and not so silent dread mixed with chuckles and tears

and yesterday

in the midst of routine and thankful:::

there was this dawning

beyond the morning

:::::

and, yes, so

this Winter’s been slow

slow to freeze

and slow to snow

slow to arrive

and slow to bear down

:::::

and yesterday the flakes fell floating like dandelion puffs

and I awed

followed them dawdle- drifting

like it was my first time in these almost- 40 years

and Winter in February is my favorite

and I looked to Him and smiled grateful

snow for the big day, I giggled aloud

and

He gives me

this gift

:::::

and friends invited us to dinner last night

to the place where the only thing on the menu is the crab (I think)

and we stayed lingering longer than two hours over cheesecake and Jesus and laughing

and my babes all tucked tight when we returned

and it was quiet and cozy and full of peace

and

He gives me

this gift

:::::

and I stepped downstairs in a rushing flutter of school and chores and list-to-doing

finding books and papers

and she had left on her desk

this secret note of birthday love in- the- making

with newly learned cursive- scrawl letters bound in glitter and perfection

“my mommy, you’re getting old, but I love you…”

oh, my giggling, weeping heart

and

He gives me

this gift

:::::

and I’m thinking this week

almost full of forty,

that time took no rest to get here.

{And what is it exactly that

I am resting in?}

And each of these many days now,

they are really what everyone says,

they are gifts,

and this squabbling heart

I have

that has fillings of these years of learning and living and walking through

is

a

gift

He

gives

me

to 

give

:::::

and all

I’ve been given

is

much.

:::::

Years of growing:::

and flowered blue bicycles

and crying

and Cabbage Patches

and divorce

and the far North traveling

and growing cucumbers

and balloons escaping my hand

and old University halls

and churches on a hill

and this man I love

and scratched knees on gravel driveways

and friends of all these almost 40 years

and those peach and pink sunsets

and babies here and with Him

and bills paid and bills waiting

and books of birds and books of Wisdom

and learning all this time

that this

:::::

best 

gift

of all is

:::::

He

Who preserved me

through

it 

all

:::::

for Himself.

:::::

and this dawning of age

becomes this proverbial

gift

to unwrap

each

and every

day

:::::

as another morning to

open my eyes

and walk 

in Him.

::::

and

That is a Gift that does not flee on wisp of breath

like this world- time escapes us:::

that Gift:::

is a Gift

that

lives

eternal.

Open it.

 

 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.  +Col. 3