halftime!

Football season is fast approaching, but the title of my post has nothing to do with that. It actually has to do with life! I cannot believe it, but I am about to turn 50! (I love to joke and say that I'm moving from "good looking" to "looking good for my age." :)

I celebrated last night with the praise team at Tim's house. We had our annual summer pool party and the next thing I knew, the team was serenading me with a song entitled "50 years just make you shudder" (to the tune of Paul Simon's "50 ways to leave your lover"). The lyrics were really clever and, of course the team sounded good! :)

Fifty years aren't making me shudder, exactly, but they are making stop and think. Now that I'm at least half way through my life (I am the optimistic sort and 100 seems like a nice round figure to shoot for :), it makes sense to stop and take stock. I want to think about who I am, what I'm doing and where I'm going.

This is hard for me, because I'm not a terribly introspective type of person. Any kind of reflection that lasts longer than 5 minutes usually involves my thinking about what I'm going to eat next or my next play in Scrabble. (I'm half-joking.) I honestly do feel like I'm wired for action. , but I know that if I'm all "attack" and no strategy, I'm going to lose the battle. Aimless activity may be good for the body (all that cardio, you know ;), but is useless for the soul.

As I stop and take stock, it seems to me that I don't need a complete overhaul but maybe a mid-course adjustment or two. I won't make any changes in a vacuum. First and foremost, I will lift my heart to God for guidance. I know I have certain habits in place that are good and important that don't need to change (my daily devotional time, nurturing family connections and friendships, even blogging), but I have areas I would like to grow in. I want to improve my musical chops. I'd love to write fiction. I know I need to grow in my ability to sit still and just "be".

There are concrete steps I can take to reach these goals and I've started to take some of them. But at this juncture, I'm starting to feel like Dorothy, watching the sand running down through the hour glass. Time is running out and I want to make the most of what's left.

The Bible says we need to make the most of our time. And that's exactly what I want to do.

So, tell me how you approach things. Whether or not you've hit "halftime", are you motivated to take a dream and turn it into a reality? How do you measure where you are today, and where you're headed? What helps you get where you want to go? Where is God in the process?