Jubilee

A half-filled, colorful balloon lurks about the room on the air currents.. Yellow, blue, green, and orange stars dance around a number repeated in vibrant shades.  50, 50, 50.  Occasionally, it startles me as I catch a glimpse of it moving into my periphery.  I quickly glance to see who is there, and then I remember, “Oh, it’s just you again.”

When my husband brought it home a couple weeks ago, he wasn't smiling.  Fifty had snuck up on him.  He has to experience the jump first, and I get 10 months to get used to the idea before it’s my turn.  For him it seems impossible to reconcile the number with the way he feels inside – still a kid at heart in so many ways, wrestling with his daughters, playing silly practical jokes.

I, though, have been looking forward to 50 for a long time. Fifty to me means freedom that I haven’t really known before.  The kids are growing into these amazing people whom I love being around and my duties as mommy have shifted from cleaning up messes, to being a confidant and sounding board.  

I walk in confidence in my relationships and my work. I'm way past worrying about being "cool" or "popular."  Perhaps the best part of this stage is enjoying extended times each morning soaking in God’s presence, rather than running around making sure everyone’s needs are met.

In the Bible, the 50^th year is the year of jubilee.  The Israelites would celebrate freedom from debt and servitude every 50 years.  And as I ponder this, a song by Paul Wilbur plays in the background of my mind, “It is the Year of Jubilee!”  So when the balloon that floats by is my balloon next year, 

I am ready to celebrate.  

HOWEVER, there is another thought that hovers over me at times:  Fifty means more than 50% of my life lies behind me now. Have I even started to live the life I was born for?  While my 18- and 20- year-olds grapple with the questions of career pathways, there is still a part of me that is asking the same questions they are pondering.  Who was I created to be?  How can I get enough perspective on my unique identity so that I can walk in my calling, my destiny?

Today I felt a tinge of regret as I pondered those questions.  Why have I not taken more initiative in pursuing my own dreams?  Have I wasted too much time?  Missed out on something along the way, something irretrievable?  But I quickly slammed the door on regret.  Although it is true that I have much to learn, true that I haven’t begun to walk in many things that are part of my destiny, and true that in a sense I have yet to begin, it is also true that regret is the least productive thought possible.  Plus, it is ridiculous to look at all that God has produced through these seasons of parenting and have any attitude except deep gratitude and awe!

Instead, ignoring all thought of lost opportunities, I press on to the future goals.  I embrace the half-filled 50 balloon and rejoice in this coming year of jubilee.  I grab hold of all that God has for me in this coming season with great expectation, that He who has begun this good work in me will be faithful to complete it.  

I rejoice, knowing that He intends to fill these coming years with more than I could ask or imagine, as I continue to give my all to Him without reservation.  For nothing can compare to the all-surpassing great riches of knowing Him and being His.

Philippians 3: 7-14.   But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. 8What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ 9and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in^a Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. 10I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, 11and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.