Episode 59 – Two Life Lessons + thoughts on being 41

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Ancient Faith Ministries

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Defintion of Kintsugi as mentioned in podcast.

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In Feb 2023, I turned 40. So that means, this Feb of 2024, I am turning 41. Since I took last year off, I didn’t have the opportunity to do a reflective type episode on the milestone of turning 40. So I’m going to take the opportunity today by sharing some reflections on how I feel about being in my 40s, some mindset shifts I’ve had to make, and a couple life lessons I’ve learned leading up to my 40th birthday that I’ve carried with me. 

So I turned 40 last year in February and in July I became the mother of a teenager when my oldest had her birthday. Then in September my husband and I celebrated 16 years of marriage. When I hear those numbers I feel — can you guess? Yes, OLD. But holding on to that idea that I’m “old” and just wishing I was 30 again doesn’t feel good and it’s not healthy, not to mention, not realistic! Sure I’m older than I’ve ever been, but I have been at my oldest my whole life (and so has everyone else). Plus, a number doesn’t need to define how I live my life. My mindset does. 

So while I’m not there yet, I’m working in shifting from thinking about being in my 40s as a positive thing, or at least a neutral one. 

Also, having children range in ages from 13 to 4, it’s been a slow shift to realizing I’m not exactly a young mom anymore! While I don’t really have experience with teenagers yet, I’ve lived through the newborn through toddler stage five times. So I’m kind of in a middle stage. Like middle-age motherhood. So that has been and interesting shift in how I view myself. 

When I was in my early 30’s, I thought that turning 40 would feel something like arriving. I would finally know who I really am. I’d have certain skills down and I’d have it all together. Well, that certainly is not how it felt when I turned 40 or how it feels now! I can only speak for myself and what I know is that this has been a hard transition. Not turning 40 exactly, but beginning a whole new life stage — at the age of 40. I am now a priest’s wife at a brand new church in a brand new city. I just went through three years of seminary where my way of life was very different than it was before, and different in how I want to live life. 

To clarify, seminary was a wonderful experience and I met some of the most amazing people there. My life revolved around the church more than ever. But, it was fast-paced with a lot of continually changing factors. It’s not a sustainable way to live. So I find myself regaining my balance and trying to figure out who I am now after that experience. There are so many activities I want to get back to that feel essential to who I am, that I had to set aside for our time at seminary, and are still on hold as we adjust to our new situation. So for me, these big life shifts have coincided with me entering my 40s. And I have to change the idea that life was simply going to settle into deeper consistency as I entered my 40s. 

One way I’m trying to look at this positively is that I still have the ability to choose who I’m going to be. How am I going to show up to this new situation? How am I going to handle challenges? No matter my age or situation, I always have the ability to choose how I will respond. 

So while I am still in the midst of figuring it all out, I have faith that God will help me find my way. That if I keep seeking Him and following Him, I will be who I am meant to be and continue to grow closer to Him and, hopefully, more like Him — no matter my age.

Now I’d like to share two life lessons that I hope are helpful to you too. 

The first is simply to resist less. I’ll explain what I mean more in a minute, but first I want to say that there are two main areas I’ve been working on applying this in my life. The first is with my children and the second is with God. 

So what I mean by resist less with my children is to not fight little things with the kids because of my own will and not because it’s a matter of right or wrong. Things like a child wanting me to sing another song when I just want to say goodnight, a child finishing up a part of their game or project instead of coming the instant I say, or a child wanting more food or less food. Instances when my child wants something or does something that is not misbehavior or pushback, but simply them being themselves, but it’s something that annoys me or makes me wait or keeps me from doing what I want to do. Resisting less, and letting go of my will in these situations makes life SO much more pleasant. When a child wakes me up at night, instead of getting mad and frustrated, I try to just accept it and help them with what they want, then we both go back to bed peacefully. When a child wants to do a chore a certain, other way, I just let them even if I prefer my way. There are are countless examples. I have to use judgment, but I usually know pretty easily when I want to correct or demand out of my own will, verses what is in the best interest of my child. I work on this daily and the more I’m able to resist less, the more peaceful our days are.

And this has carried over into my relationship with God. With all the changes in our life the past year, you better believe my will has been denied! Accepting that and trusting that God knows best (over and over) has given me peace when I had been in agony. Accepting my circumstances when there is nothing I can do about them actually brings freedom. With this freedom I can actually see more clearly and see what things I can do that may improve a situation or at least how it’s affecting me. It’s a concept I don’t fully understand or apply, but I’m carrying it with me as I try to live it out more and more. 

The second life lesson that has been extremely helpful to me in the past couple years is the concept of kint-su-gi. This is the definition from Wikipedia. “Kint-su-gi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery by mending the areas of breakage with lacquer, dusted or mixed with powdered gold, silver, or platinum. As a philosophy, it treats breakage and repair as part of the history of an object, rather than something to disguise.”

This concept came to me from a few different sources all around the same time. At the time, and still, I apply it events and areas in my life that have been broken. It allows me to see how God can repair the brokenness and make an area even stronger if I allow Him to do the work or rather, we work together to make things better than before. This can be applied to mistakes I make, but it’s most helpful to me to apply it to painful events that happen by no fault of anyone. One example is with the miscarriage I had in 2022. I was due to have our baby in October. It was an extremely painful and disappointing season to go through. But God gave me many gifts through that experience some of those happening the month I was due. That October, my husband was ordained a priest and we became godparent to a precious baby boy. The next month, we became godparents again to a precious baby girl. Now, my husband would have been ordained at some point, even if we’d had our child, and maybe we would have still gained two godchildren, but they felt like special bonds filling in the crack in my heart, making my heart stronger and more grateful. 

Another area that this shows itself is in arguments. When I’m in the midst of the argument and I’m angry and hurt, this concept helps me to remember to ask God to repair this crack in the relationship as only He can. When I do, the argument results in more understanding therefore strengthening the relationship.

In general, this concept helps me see the hand of God in the cracks, the pain, the hard times of my life. It reminds me that He can and does heal — and the healing can bring more strength and beauty to my life than there was originally. 

I know a lot of you listening are younger than me, so I hope my reflection on entering my 40s is helpful to you when that time comes for you. And I hope these two life lessons are helpful to everyone. 

I also want to announce that I have a new blog, again! It’s the same address as before: allthesethings.net. It’s still brand new and small, but it will have the show notes from this episode on there! Go check it out and I’ll be back next month!