Celebrating 50!

A couple of weeks ago–something amazing happened in my life.

I turned the big 5 – 0!

And yes, we celebrated.

While I’ve always known that life is precious, these days I really take that to heart. LIFE IS PRECIOUS! Every single day is here for us to celebrate and live with joy and purpose.

50 is NOT a scary number! I’m actually embracing it with open arms. Because I know this truth–I’m a walking miracle. Almost every time a medical professional reads my medical history they look up at me and say, “You know you are a miracle right?” I do. I am humbled and grateful to still be alive.

That is why we had to do some celebrating–because a girl only gets to turn 50 one time.

My family and friends began the celebration with birthday wishes which included a birthday serenade from my mom and dad. Leighanne and Hannah stretched their cooking repertoire via Pinterest and prepared delicious salmon wraps with mango salsa. Delish!

On Friday night I was spoiled by my WooHoo girls with a glamour night which included getting our hair and makeup done and then a photo session. We had the best time laughing so hard at the shenanigans that took place. Some of the outfits we squeezed into will never be displayed, but just know that if you tug hard enough and don’t breathe ever–you too can wear certain outfits! Ha!

Saturday was the Auburn/Georgia game. Thank you very much UGA for a win in honor of my 50th! LOL! I’m just going to say that my gloating was very short and sweet. I kept it in check in this divided house.

After church on Sunday family and friends came over to help me celebrate one more time. They went all out and threw me a lovely party and the Lord gave us perfect fall weather for a beautiful backdrop.

Thank you so much for all the beautiful gifts, blessings, your time and effort that was put out there for me to experience and cherish! A girl could get used to this lavish celebration of life!

While I thoroughly enjoyed celebrating, turning 50 also took me down a road of reflection. I have pondered many things over the last few weeks. Some of the things I thought about will never have an answer this side of heaven, and I have learned to accept this inevitability. Others, however have forced me to take action.

One of the verses from the Bible that I want to focus on in my 50th year of life is John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.”

What does it mean to have an abundant life? Immediately the first thoughts that came to my mind were joy and peace. How different would my life be if I could just focus on having the joy of the Lord flowing out of me abundantly in the next year?

And peace. There is NOTHING sweeter than the peace from our heavenly Father. Peace that truly passes all understanding. I wonder what would happen in my life if my immediate response to problems would be to trust in the One who gives peace lavishly to us for every kind of problem that comes my way in the next year. Would I have less wrinkles after a year? LOL!

I so want to live an abundant life for the Lord. I’m not sure what that might look like, but I do know that God will lead me to study His word, and spend time meditating on the answers He provides. He’s like that you know. If we lack wisdom about something, we can simply ask Him for wisdom, and He will provide it. Every. Single. Time.

SOOOO……What about you? What do you need to ponder or meditate on this next year of your life? I’m going to challenge you to find a new verse in the Bible, read the verse in context, search for the audience of the book, learn about the author, look for the literal meaning and/or any inferences, find the “take-away” for your life, apply it and then memorize it. (That’s another goal of mine for the upcoming year. I’m going to try and memorize 52 verses over the course of a year.) I need to keep growing and challenging myself. You do to!

Hopefully by the time I turn 51, I will be a little bit wiser, will have developed amazing memorization skills, and will be living life abundantly.