I Got Carded

I’m surprised by how happy it made me to think some random stranger (whose job it is to ask for ID’s) may have momentarily thought I was closer to 20 than 40. I do sometimes miss the spontaneity, energy, and adventure of youthfulness.  Those days were awfully fun!

Usually, I actually don’t mind that I’m aging. I respect and admire many individuals who truly seem much more grounded and beautiful to me at 50, 60, 70 & 80 than I ever remembering myself or my friends being at 20-something-and-still-finding-the-way.

The lines on my older friends’ faces and the wrinkles on their hands have been earned through living and loving and fighting. Those age markers have been earned through the crucible of life, the hodgepodge of bitter and sweet moments. That kind of earned beauty, born from surviving and thriving, is lovelier to me than skinny jeans and perfect skin any day.

Our recent study on heaven has taught me that, in glory, our bodies will be fully restored. I wonder what that will be like? We won’t be ghosts, bobbing 6 inches off the ground. We will be ourselves, in our own skin, with 2 feet on the ground-walking,  dancing, kissing, and hugging other real people.  We will be healthy, whole, and filled with joy.

Maybe that flicker of pleasure in being carded tonight points to my soul’s hope that heaven is really true. Maybe I have a subconscious echo in me of a future in eternity where aging and worry and feelings of inadequacy and aching and tears and troubles will be no more.  C.S. Lewis said, “Heaven is the music we were born hearing.” Maybe eternity is written in our hearts more than we know. [Or maybe I just like getting carded because… what almost 40 year old woman doesn’t?]  Either way, I join the apostle Paul in eagerly awaiting that day when God will make all things, including our aging, failing bodies, new.