Birthdays have never effected me much. Mostly they were just numbers in a series. 16 didn’t feel very different from 15 other than the fact the State recognized I was old enough to start driving. Honestly, that didn’t excite me much. 18 was the same as 17 except for the whole registering for the selective service thing. 21 passed me by without even a tip of the hat. I was married and in Bible college. The “BIG 21”. celebrations so many people make of that birthday never even crossed my mind.

I do remember 35, though. It was a tough birthday. I wasn’t prepared for it. I thought it would just pass me by like every other birthday, but it didn’t .

I can only speculate what changed, but when I turned 35 the weight of what I at first called “adulthood” suddenly fell on my shoulders, and that weight was HEAVY. In fact it was crushing.

By 2002 I had 3 kids ages 13, 12 and 11. I had been married for 15 years. I had owned two homes and been through three careers, finally settling on the work of ministry. It’s not like I was suddenly introduced to adulthood that year. I had been adulting as far as I understood it for over a decade. But honestly….

Maybe, it was that, in 2002, for the first time I felt a sense of permanence. Maybe, it was at 35 that I first understood my course was set and I had passed the point of no return.

Maybe, it was at this point I understood that I was going to follow the call of ministry no matter where it led me.

Maybe, for the first time I was clear on the fact that the calling was not about “professional ministry”, but about a walk of faith with God that would cause me too fulfill an office of the church no matter what my job ended up being.

Maybe, it was in this year that I began to fully realize I was answering destiny’s call.

Maybe that was what felt like a weight.

Maybe it wasn’t the weight of “adulthood” I felt at 35, but the sudden realization I had been caught in the full influence of destiny’s rip tide.

Maybe….

maybe…

maybe….

There are a lot of maybes as I look back. I am certain that whatever hit me at the age of 35 almost drowned me…. could have drowned me with all that it set in motion….maybe even should have drowned me….BUT GOD.

35 was an inflection point for me.

2002 was not the year of actual change, but as I look back it was the year when all the changes that have played out since became certain. I felt it back then. I just did not understand what it was I was feeling.

I only mention all this because here I am having just passed a birthday…my 57th birthday and I am feeling 35 again…not in a “I am returning to my youthful self” way…but in a “Here I go again” way.

I sense that the tide of destiny is about to take over again. I sense that this time it may be more than just me standing at an inflection point. I sense we not just me are at an outpouring and upsurging all at once of ….BUT GOD.