So a few of you have asked how you miss stuff around here so I thought I would take a moment to explain the best ways for us to be in touch.
Of course, I blog here in this little space. However, I often publish “mini-posts” on my author Facebook page. If you haven’t already “liked” it, then click here. BUT . . .
Facebook is making authors like me (and small business owners) pay to be seen in your feed. For real. I’ve been paying to show up in your feeds for about a year now because so many of my readers access my writing through Facebook.
I would love to not be so dependent on Facebook because honestly, I don’t make enough to keep paying to be seen. I’m not sharing this to put down Facebook but to let you all know how it works – when I have in-real-life conversations about this, most people are surprised to find that we authors pay to play.
How can you subscribe? Well, in the sidebar of my blog is a little option to register via email. This is the best way for us to stay in touch. Click here and you can do so now.
I’ll leave you with what I posted on Facebook last Friday – two days before I turned 42 this past Sunday:
So I’m about to turn 42 in two days.
I’m not sure how this happened because sometimes I wonder if I’m old enough to have kids. Or maybe it’s if I’m mature enough to have kids. And, of course, truth be told . . . Some days, I’m not.
I once was able to lose five pounds in one week. Now I can gain five pounds in one day if it’s been a rather decadent one.
I once was able to have two glasses of wine and get up and run five miles the next morning. Now? No way, no how.
I once was able to get by with four hours of sleep a night and no one noticed. Now, the bags under my eyes show the world it was a rough night of rest.
I once just showed dark roots when it was time for the next coloring. Now, those roots are peppered with gray.
As I read my Bible this morning, I looked up this passage:
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.” – 2 Corinthians 4:16-18
Because here’s the thing: if I was given the chance to go back to those carefree days of my youth?
No. Way.
There’s something so freeing about being a woman in her ’40s. We’ve been through some stuff. We’ve put our time in as the PTA president and the coordinator of all things at the church. We’ve been through a few jobs.
Our tummies are far wobblier but our faith and our sense of who we are is as firm as it’s ever been.
So I’ll take the bags. I’ll take the shorter runs and the gray roots. I’ll take that wobbly tummy. (Well. I’m still trying on that one. But it’s much harder than it used to be.)
Inward renewal is a beautiful thing. It’s sometimes a really hard thing, but the result always bears a beautiful fruit. Eternal glory outweighs it all.
So I don’t fret over the chronological years but instead, rejoice over the transformation of my soul. Over the laugh lines that prove I’m blessed beyond measure. And yes, even over that wobbly tummy that gave life to my three most precious projects.
Sometimes we get caught-up in the seen, in the stuff that stresses us instead of blesses us, in the circumstances we cannot control.
But it’s precisely how we handle the seen and what we learn from doing so that leads to transformation – a transformation that prepares us for the day when we will see the unseen.
And it will be lovely.
There’s still room in our Heart Sisters: Be the Friend You Want to Have
And to all of this I say a big ole juicy and hearty AMEN!!!! Being 42 is so….liberating! Sure there are things that I recognize that I need/want to work on, but…well…for the excellent reasons you stated!!