Blessed are you who have reached a new age—
even if it doesn’t seem to fit.
It may feel too big. Too reductive. Too limiting.
It may be marked by a life you barely recognize.
The kids who have all moved out or settled somewhere far away.
Or they have never left and you’re wondering if you’ll ever get that home office…
The work that no longer sets the daily hum.
The life-partner who is gone and friends you’ve outlived.
The body which doesn’t allow for the hobby you loved anymore.
The monthly check that doesn’t provide the flexibility you’d hoped for.
Wasn’t I young just a second ago?
Will I ever recognize the person staring back in the mirror?
What’s left to do that really counts?
How do I know if I am, or ever was… enough?
God, give us eyes to notice the ways
life can still be beautiful and rich and full
in the midst of so much that has been lost.
Remind us that you are not done with us yet.
For the God who spoke us into being, calls us even now.
Not to an ideal or a role, but to a moment. This one.
In a world that equates age with liability,
it’s time for a reminder that you are a gift.
You give advice.
You hold onto family recipes.
You remember that thing that happened and honestly, we shouldn’t have forgotten.
You think our kids are beautiful and our bad partners should be soundly dumped.
You kept the photo album.
You hold our stories.
Thank you.
Even when the world isn’t paying attention,
May you get a glimmer of a reminder that these little things add up
to something that is and always will be
beautiful.
Adapted for a communal setting from THE LIVES WE ACTUALLY HAVE
