by Angela Drennan St.Clair

As my birth month of September comes to a close, my heart still marinates in the sweet celebration that my husband, family, and friends gave me. Birthdays, to me, serve as one of the most important holidays of the year, and each one is embraced and celebrated.

At 16, when my birth mother was pregnant, family members told her to abort. She didn’t. So, I celebrate my life every single year.

50, though, marks a year like no other so far, and as I reflect on who I was, who I am, and who I am still striving to be, I am humbled by the lessons I’ve learned, the seasons and people I’ve encountered, and the chapters left to be lived and written.

Being human, with all of its obstacles and intricacies, presents a never ending mirror that we can choose to ignore, shatter, or clean and refine. I choose the latter, and by God’s grace and unfailing direction, I will continue to listen and learn.

With all of my failures, trials, and successes, I accept this new chapter as an opportunity to strenthen my resolve to be who God has called me to be.

And in this new chapter, I dedicate myself to ongoing wife-ing, mothering, teaching, and the like, but it’s time to pursue my life-long goal of writing and publishing. With books being published probably every single minute, it seems a lofty goal, yet here I am, at 50, still longing for it.

So as I embark on this next trip around the sun, may the rays of time and space and inspiration shower me with the wisdom to produce blossoms of reflection adorned with vibrant colors of life experiences that connect all of us and challenge us to escape our comfort zones in order to grow wildly into the magnificent humans that God created us to be.

Here’s to 50, world. I send my upmost gratitude to all–even those no longer with me in this season–who shaped me into my imperfect, curious, and maturing self.