Over The Hill - Or Just Getting Started?

“Life’s about changing. Nothing ever stays the same.”  - “How Can I Help You Say Goodbye” by Karen Taylor-Good and Burton Banks Collins (performed by Patty Loveless)

 

I recently celebrated my 50^th birthday. In many ways, it’s hard to believe that I’ve been on this planet for an entire half century. In others, especially looking back at the past few years, it’s easier to believe just due to the sheer number of changes that have occurred.

Some of you know to what I’m referring. Others of you haven’t a clue. In short, because of some poor decisions I made in my personal life, my entire world was thrown into chaos. I deeply hurt those to whom I was closest. My marriage ended, personal relationships were damaged – in some cases irrevocably – and I found myself in a place I had never been before: adrift, without a home and wondering if I was a terrible person. I was despondent. I was remorseful. I was broken.

Over a period of several months, I began to find my stride again. This was due, in part, to therapy. The therapist helped me come to terms with my decision-making and to realize that bad choices did not make a bad person. Instead, I was a good person who made some bad choices and I now had to come to terms with that, the consequences of those choices and find a way to move on.

The other thing that helped me was finding a new church. On a whim, I visited a church I’d driven by a thousand times but had never set foot inside. By the grace of God, the church was in a sermon series called “Broken Heroes.” Each week, the series covered figures from the Bible through whom God accomplished amazing things, in spite of the fact that every single one of those people had made terrible choices and carried with them significant personal baggage. It was a God thing – messages that hit me right where I needed to be hit. Through that sermon series and others that followed, God showed me that just because I’m broken, that doesn’t mean that I’m not worthy and that I don’t have value. I could be forgiven and God could take the broken pieces of my life and put them back together and make something beautiful out of it. It was a revelation and it helped me get back on my feet again.

As wonderful as the therapist’s advice and the sermons were, they were still philosophical. I could believe that I was still worthy of good things – despite my mistakes and bad choices – but it was still an abstract idea and concept.  It wasn’t until the summer of 2022 that it became empirical, existential and real. That is when a met a person who was the embodiment of all of those positive concepts.  Somebody who met me at my lowest, accepted me with all of my faults and baggage and showed me that I wasn’t broken, damaged goods. She showed me that I AM a good person who deserves happiness and she accepted me and loved me for exactly who I was.

So, I saw one relationship end and I saw another begin. Changes. I moved into one apartment and then another. Changes. I left one church and joined another. Changes. For someone who has always enjoyed consistency and constants – both in my personal and professional life – I was dealing with change in all aspects of my life.

In the face all of that change, what did I do? Well, I decided to throw caution to the wind and quit my job. I left a company and a department I had been in for 22 years and decided to start over again with a new job and a new company. I joked at the time that everything else had changed in my life, why not change jobs too?

In the span of just over two years, virtually everything in my life had changed: my address, my marital status, my church and my job.  At times, it has been absolutely terrifying.  But, you know what? Through all of these changes, I have come out the other side a different person. A braver person. And, at the end of the day, a happier person.

Don’t get me wrong. I have regrets over some of the choices I made and I will be paying for some of those choices for the rest of my life. But I am now in a relationship with my best friend, the person who knows me better than anyone else (besides God!) and the person with whom I can really, truly be my genuine self. We are engaged and will soon be married and I cannot wait to spend the rest of my life with her.

What’s my point? Well, some changes are thrust upon us. Others we choose ourselves. Many changes are hard but, often, they also help you get where you want to be and where you need to be. Five years ago, I could have never foreseen the twists and turns my life has taken. But, through it all, God – and the amazing guardian angel He sent me – have gotten me to a wonderful place on the other side.

So, dear readers, don’t be afraid to make a change and do new things. You never know where those changes may lead you.

I’m 50 and, thus, in many ways, perhaps my best years are behind me. But, with a new relationship and a new job and a new outlook – folks, I’m just getting started!