This week? I begin.

This week I begin, my very first days, of my very last year of being in my 40s.

And I dare to believe: The second act of your life can be the best act, if you live as a verb, active, with agency.

And? When we know there isn’t much time, we make much of the time right now.

“Remembering that our days are short is what expands our joy in today.”

Remembering that our days are short is what expands our joy in today.

I water the explosion of rocket snapdragons in the picket fence flowerbeds, and peer-inspect the citrus tree, begging for any new growth.

I pull red root pigweed out of the rambling roses. I slice sun-warm tomatoes from the garden.

I keep thinking:

Maybe only about 21 Christmas mornings left now… maybe only about 21 Thanksgiving dinners left now. How many more springs will I plant seeds for a summer harvest of echinacea and ruby-red tomatoes?

And there is that one woman that is walking with me through the questions, that one woman I sit with every morning when I open my SACRED journal.

Hagar.

“Where are you coming from — and where are you going to?”

Hagar, the woman whom God asked, “Where are you coming from — and where are you going to?”

How can we see our way to a meaningful life, if we don’t make time to be reflective? The second act of our lives can only be better if we reflect on it longer than a hot second.

You have to reflect on The Hagar Question to find the answer to your one life:

“Where are you coming from — and where are you going to?”

So as part of my morning routine, as my daily rule of life, a SACRED way of life, every morning, I pick up my pen, press open a new blank page and journal, and sit with The Hagar Question, be like Hagar who located her soul on the journey, assessed the journey she had forged, the trajectory she was on, what the landscape was behind her — and scanned the horizon ahead, determined the route forward, set her intention and direction for all that is to come.

“Taking the time to write, to actually dot our i’s and cross our t’s, is what literally gives us new eyes, new insights, because what is life and writing but re-vision.”

Taking the time to write, to actually dot our i’s and cross our t’s, is what literally gives us new eyes, new insights, because what is life and writing but re-vision.

And I can see:

Where I’ve been coming from — is a nest feeling emptier and prayers feeling fuller. I’m coming from crow’s feet and deep laugh lines and a face wearing its age brazenly.

I’m coming from: Jesus does not have a timeline for my perfection, but Jesus throws me lifelines for my ongoing sanctification.

I’m coming from: Time keeps moving on, and I keep moving my body to not just keep moving the stress through, but to keep my brain moving.

I am coming from fresh courage: Never be reactionary but visionary.

And I have a vision of where I want to be going to:

Refuse to take offence when you can take joy.

Fulfillment in the soul, comes from focusing not on all that is large, but on all that is small.

“What will heal the broken parts of you is not beating yourself up more, but letting Jesus break His heart of love over those parts more.”

Forget whether if less is more — or if more is more.
Bottom line, always is:
Simply enjoying is more.

Wellbeing is never about wealth, but always about the health of all being well with your soul.

Taking captive every thought and making it obedient to Jesus is about every thought being held by Love and moving with Love.

Nothing stops feeling overwhelmed like pausing to see how God sings a love song over you, sings a love song because of you, His arms under you.

What will heal the broken parts of you is not beating yourself up more, but letting Jesus break His heart of love over those parts more. Imagine that.

Literally keep imagining that.

I lay my pen down.

This act of sacred journaling, of asking the soul The Hagar Question “Where are you coming from — and where are you going to?” — is the act of discovering your real life — and the best second act.

If you only have 1 year left, 10 years left, 20 years left, what would you start doing right now?

“Unless you intentionally take time to reflect on your end, you can miss what you need to start.”

Unless you intentionally take time to reflect on your end, you can miss what you need to start. Death ends our story here — but reflecting on our death changes our story for forever.

Hagar wasn’t a woman of positioned or power, but Hagar was a woman of profound perspective.

This woman of profound perspective — is the first and only one in the whole of the Hebrew Bible who personally names God. A woman, the only person who names God: El Roi — the God who sees me.

“I have seen the God who sees me.”

Did Hagar give God the name El Roi, the God who sees me — because she was a visionary woman, a woman who literally had the vision to actually see how a woman is seen by God?

Or — did Hagar give God the name El Roi, the God who sees me, because she felt so invisible and really unseen to the people all around her?

It can happen, and you can feel it every time you blow out another round of birthday candles:

The more life you have lived, the less seen you become.

“The older you get, the more invisible you can feel.”

The older you get, the more invisible you can feel.

It’s a strange thing to realize that all the images around you are saying that only youthful is beautiful, that it’s time for you to cover your greys, cover your fine lines, cover yourself up into, ultimately, invisibility.

It’s stranger yet: When we don’t see ourselves reflected in any images around us, our invisibility can grow into our identity.

Every single one of us is born into this world longing to be recognized, to be seen.

And when we all come into the world looking and longing for someone who is looking and longing for us — the possibility that we grow into invisibility is deeply disorienting.

And yet: How do we actually want to be seen?

“When we see ourselves as subjects in our own lives, we live as verbs, women who have agency in our stories.”

There is a difference between being seen merely as a beautiful object, to ogle and use — and being seen as a bountiful subject, full of agency and interiority.

When we see ourselves as objects to be evaluated in other people’s lives, we never feel truly seen, but we actually objectify ourselves, and let ourselves become passive tools that are used or removed.

But: When we see ourselves as subjects in our own lives, we live as verbs, women who have agency in our stories. Second acts can be far more secure, steady, stronger, and seen than first acts.

Seeing where you’ve been, and seeing where you’re going, you get to move forward into the second half of your life, into your second act, knowing the utter thrill that you are fully known and deeply seen.

You have God sitting in the front row, His eyes never leaving yours, Him fully attentive to your every brave move. You don’t have to do one thing to get the love of anyone — the eyes of God are fixed on yours, smiling delight in you, smitten with you. He who sees every hair on your head and sees the smallest sparrow, He sees all of you.

And He says the story of history wouldn’t be complete without you, and He sees you as the perfect verb He needed, to write this singular, stunning part of the story.

“God sees your second act as one of His greatest acts.”

God sees your second act as one of His greatest acts.

I gather rattling seeds from the lupins in the garden, check on how the foxgloves are setting to seed.

I walk through the garden growing older and into a tender kind of beauty at the end of the summer, and there is a way to walk through life, grow older beautifully, and be a Hagar who keeps asking where she’s been, where she’s going and being like the woman, the only person in all the Hebrew Bible God who names God: I have seen the God who sees me.

Visionary women have the vision to truly see the God who truly sees them.

Visionary women know:

You don’t have to be seen as young to be seen.

Wherever you have been, you are seen — and wherever you are going, you are seen.

No woman has to ever fear being invisible because she is always deeply seen by God.

And I pick a handful of delicate roses, rambling whites and barely peaches and a few miniature yellows, for my old wooden bench where I pick up a pen and journal, and I think about that, about opening the Word and seeing God and being seen, and I see it again, in countless ways, the way to begin a stronger second act:

The way you slay invisibility is with intimacy.

Intentional intimacy with God, with our people, is what intentionally slays all our invisibility in the world.

And in the evening, in the cool of the day, I walk in the garden and into the beginning of a second act of stronger, deeper intimacy with the One who deeply sees.


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