For now, some thoughts festering inside me, along with the remnant germs, are fighting to get out. Being sick makes me think a lot, since my body isn't up to much more than curling up in bed.
I put it down to the fact that past 30, the woman's body not only begins to lose its nubility and elasticity, bouncing back from a simple common cold also gets that much harder. A head cold used to take no more than 3 days to clear. Nowadays, it lingers - 3, 4 weeks, sometimes a month or more.
I've been studying my face in the mirror too. The glow of youth gleaming from beneath the epidermis fades day by day - I see a lot more sun spots, maybe age spots (already!)? The skin around my eyes seem especially thin, brittle, even. All that expensive lotion, cream and serum can only battle so much the ravages of time, I guess! Dullness eventually prevails.
The realization that we're all getting older seems especially stark in contrast with the other face I've been spending a lot of time studying - whose skin is all of 21 months old. Oh that face! Who can resist it? =)
And then I see the ladies who have been married for 50 years or more in church, with grandchildren in tow. Though their bodies are no longer ramrod straight and sturdy as many moons ago, and the years have etched deep lines - laugh lines, frown lines, all kinds of swirly wirly lines - in their faces, they impress me with the inward joy only knowing the Lord can give them.
When I see how that joy beams right out when they laugh together, I reckon it must be easy to forget the joint-pains and aches they must be battling, and I find myself just reacting with a thought - Wow. Will my face belie joy or just life's wounds when I'm that old?
Aging also reminds me that eventually, we're all headed to die, every one of us. And though I can claim victory over death through what Jesus did for us on the cross, I wonder if I'm ever ready for that, not experiencing, not seeing for myself what lies beyond the grave. How does eternity pan out for this mother, I wonder?
I find myself looking once again at Dylan, this little man of ours, and find myself in awe. There is such an incredible life force that comes from being a tiny shoot, breaking out of the soil, glimmering in the morning sun, promising to be a mighty oak one day.
As though in answer to some of my unadorned thoughts, this morning at the baptist church where Dylan's Monday playgroup is, I read a sign hanging inside the door of the ladies' restroom.
Wildly paraphrased since I clearly didn't have the presence of mind to copy them down, I present the words on that sign here:
"A Godly woman may not always like what she sees in the mirror.
The curves that didn't use to be there, the lines and the etches, the scars.
Pray to love what you cannot accept, and learn to accept what you cannot change.
Love every line, every curve as a gift from God in making the woman that you are.
Real women always have them (curves and lines)."
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