I resent how Instagram and Facebook think they “know” me. Ads targeting women of “a certain age” overwhelm my feed. As I scroll, I see ads for exercise programs to get rid of double chins, non-surgical facelifts (not gonna lie, that one did intrigue me), weight-loss injections, and mini-mom makeovers. Social media is a lot of things, but subtle is not one of them.
When we were younger, it was the slick Seventeen magazine ads that inspired us to look more mature, and now Botox ads convince us we should look seventeen. The mode may change, but the message remains the same: ‘you’re not enough, and you need to become more.’
Over the years, I’ve wrestled with my share of insecurities and have strived to become more. I could blame Seventeen magazine or Instagram for making me want things I can’t have or distracting me with vanity, but I don’t want to give them too much credit. They don’t know my heart; they’re simply tapping into desires we all have.
Flourishing Beyond our Feeds
As misdirected as those desires often are, they remind us of a biblical truth: we were made for more than this life can offer. We sense it deep down—we were made to flourish, like Adam and Eve in the garden before the fall. All our attempts to strive for health, wealth, beauty, and happiness point back to this innate desire we all have for Eden—for heaven.
On my 50th birthday, I can’t help but look back on my life and see God’s patient and gentle dealings with me. He has been slowly changing me, sanctifying me, and transforming my misplaced longings through every season and decade. I hope this kind of review might encourage some of you—stuck in a season you think will never change, or trying to become something the world tells you to be. You’re not enough, and that’s by design. No matter what the ads in your social media feed want you to believe about yourself. Your neediness is meant to drive you to the all-sufficient One. He’s writing the story of your life, using everything to sanctify you, make you flourish, and help you look more like Jesus.
Here’s a snapshot of the last forty years and God’s progressive (and ongoing) work in me.
My Teens: Becoming
My teen years were in the mid-80s to mid-90s—that amazing slip of time before phones and digital media were everywhere. Even though times were simpler then, growing up is always hard. I went through all the teen things: acne, weight issues, insecurity about friends and boys, and anxiety about my mid-level popularity status.
Despite my desire to fit in and be accepted, Jesus captured my heart during these years, and he kept me. I was learning to follow him, and he planted the seed and the need for holy leisure in me—though I wouldn’t recognize it until much later. The future seemed limitless and exciting, and I was impatient to see what my life would become.
My Twenties: Belonging
Life changed quickly, and then slowly, in my twenties. I got married at 21, which seems young to me now, but we adapted to married life with relative ease. We were establishing our home and our business, and our cups quickly filled with responsibilities.
I worked full-time for several years, but the job title I wanted most was “Mom.” My longing for children and motherhood consumed me. One by one, my friends started having babies, and I wondered whether God would withhold the good things I wanted forever. But in God’s perfect (albeit slow-to-me) timing, he answered our prayers, and we had two children before that decade was up.
Motherhood was fulfilling, but also more sanctifying than I expected. It was tempting to view myself entirely through the lens of my roles as wife and mother. With that, my mood and my perception of myself would rise and fall, based on how well I performed. But I was also learning that, as much as I belonged to my children, my heart belonged to Christ. He was slowly revealing what it meant to be found “in Him.”
My Thirties: Building
In my 30s, we had two more babies, a few more business ventures, started a school, and we were part of a church plant. Everything we were involved in was a from-the-ground-up venture that required our full attention. My husband and I found a lot of joy and purpose in what we were doing, but I was often so exhausted, I wondered how we could maintain our pace.
This was a particularly exhausting decade, and I remember struggling to find rest in the Word and grow in my faith. Guilt—both the mom-kind and the self-condemning kind—constantly plagued me. Was I doing enough for my kids? Would I ever sleep through the night again? Why was I so undisciplined in spiritual matters? And why can’t I lose this stubborn baby weight? The Lord sustained me through this season of building, but I had no idea he was about to uproot us.
My Forties: Broadening
On my actual 40th birthday, we suffered a ministry fallout that broke our hearts. Looking back, it seemed like an ominous sign of more heartbreak to come. A few years later, we got hit with a new trial that came with tsunami-like force. Everything we had worked so hard to build–our family and marriage, our business, our friendships, and our ministry was impacted. It became clear the Lord was moving us on, and we needed a fresh start.
Those years brought pain I had never known, but I also experienced God’s comfort and presence in tangible ways. In my 40s, the Lord answered two longstanding prayers with two words which I came to treasure: holy leisure. My decades-long struggle to consistently enjoy time in God’s Word and my desire to write were answered by the discovery of an ancient phrase, otium sanctum. By his grace, he allowed me to write a book about pursuing holy leisure to close out my decade.
My Fifties: Beholding
As I enter a new decade, I sense a lot more change on the horizon. My nest is slowly emptying, and I have very mixed feelings about it. But the word I hope will define my next decade is ‘beholding.’ My default setting has been to look primarily at myself, often through a worldly lens of what a woman who is “of a certain age” should look like and be. However, I pray that in this next season of life, my gaze will shift upward to behold another’s glory.
The beauty standard I want to conform to is the one Paul was so captivated by. He said, “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Cor. 3:18).
Who knows? Someday, I may take Instagram up on that offer for a non-surgical facelift. But I want my real transformation to be more than skin deep. I want to be transformed from the inside out: becoming what I behold—more of Jesus.
May the next year bring us all one degree closer to that glory. Heaven awaits.
Cara
P.S. My book comes out a few weeks after my birthday. How kind is God? You can pre-order it here.