What I Love About Getting Older
This week I looked at my husband Russ and told him I was really glad I was getting older.
He looked at me like I had lost my mind.
But it's true. Even though my body is changing—gravity is a thing—I love the bigger changes happening within, and they are worth it.
It's like I can step back and see the trajectory of life, the purpose of the journey, the exciting finish line of this life (which is just the entrance into our real home!).
When my kids started having kids, I gained a new set of eyes. If you're a grandparent, you know what I mean.
Watching my children and their spouses make sacrifices for their own kids brings me right back to those years of no sleep, stretched so thin I thought I'd break.
It's interesting how our giving of self is shrouded within the mystery of parenthood. Somehow we only see our inadequacies—our yelling, our impatience—and miss what's really happening: the laying down of one life for others. Just getting up in the middle of the night to care for another is such a massive thing. (I could add all the times we've cleaned up bodily fluids. Enough said about that.)
Over the years I've learned how to have fun with my kids—laughing, enjoying their company. It gets easier as they get older. I love my adult children.
As I've aged, I've understood the importance of letting them make mistakes, knowing I'm a guardrail, not a rescue boat. Sometimes they almost need to drown a little. With the resources I have, it would be so easy to swoop in and fix everything. But looking at them and saying, "Okay, what next?"—letting them do their own fixing, letting them mature through it, watching how much more resilient they are on the other side—that's what makes this season so good.
That's why I've come to love being older. Even though my eyes are fading, I have sight. I can see.
One of the best gifts I've been given in adulthood is the understanding that we've been rescued by God the Father through Jesus. That truth changed my trajectory, my confidence, my trust. It's not blind trust anymore—it's a beautiful trust bound up with child-like confidence.
All of us have gifts to give. This is one of mine, and it's what I keep coming back to share.
At first it felt strange to share it with others because it felt too personal. I was on my bike several years ago when I felt God almost urging me to create a course around my transformation. I stopped and felt exposed.
Wait. You want me to share my inner stuff in a course?
Yes.
Why? It's about me, food, and You.
Think you're the only one? The gift wasn't given to you alone.
Oh.
So I created Inside Out, a course that goes deep into this transformation.
And this week I'm opening a stepping stone—a shorter journey that comes before Inside Out, called The Journey to Real Freedom.
It's where I've put my clearest thinking on what it actually means to be free.
If you've ever felt like freedom is for other women—the ones with more discipline, more time, more figured out—I want you to know that's not how it works. Freedom isn't something you earn your way into. It's something you're invited into, exactly as you are right now.
That's what this is for.