So, I think I might be fully an adult now. I know there has been some speculation among many, that my passage into adulthood may have been an unattainable reality. However, I turned 40 on Wednesday. I’m adjusting to life on the “other side:” I’ve decided to have my hips replaced (preventatively) and I scheduled a colonoscopy (Because, who wouldn’t want that?). I bought a pair of reading glasses at CVS because I know I’ll inevitably need them. I started eating dinner at 4:30p and referring to my favorite TV shows as “my programs.”

I talked about my birthday with one woman yesterday who is six months pregnant. I told her that I recently started calculating my birthdays in 10-year chunks but through the lens of my kids’ ages. So, ten years ago today, my daughter was 3 days old. My youngest son was still two and a half years away from being born. Similarly, I projected the next ten year span: my oldest will be in his fourth year of college and my youngest in his senior year of high school. That thought gave me pause.

Everyone fifty years old and older talk about that same kind of logic. They talk about speed — speed of life — that the decades ahead will bend the time-space continuum, teleporting my children into adulthood in little more than a blink. I had this thought: If I took one week with my kids on some kind of family trip, every year until my youngest graduates from high school, that’s only eleven weeks. That’s less time than it takes for P90X to transform someone from a squishy desk-jockey into a chiseled American Gladiator. Oh man.

So what do I do? I guess I could coast. I could take fewer risks. I could try to figure out how to dream smaller, to let go of the big, scary, vision-y stuff. I could keep holding on to littler dreams — dreams that can be purchased, ordered online, driven, flown, or worn. I could make preparations for more cynicism and disdain. I could start withdrawing from the world, deciding that it will need me less and less.

Or…

I could continue to prepare to be amazed. I could anticipate a renewal in God’s calling in my life. I could make those eleven weeks the best weeks ever. I could dream about what God is doing in and through our church for the community. I could step into fear rather than running from it. Together, we could start thinking about unleashing the compassionate, courageous, transformative love of Jesus into the world. We can believe God isn’t done with us — that we, like the world — are a work in progress… and that there is much to be done in both.

So let’s progress. Let’s stop counting the moments and start making the moments count. The best is still ahead of us. Onward everyone.

See you soon,

Jeff