Seven Forward, Seven Back

 

Black Forest cake (Schwarzwälder Kirschtorte) at Café Schäfer (Triberg, Germany),

 using Josef Keller's original 1915 recipe.

Happy Fiftieth birthday, darling girl!!!

Wait! I am not fifty yet! And I have not lost my mind! (To those calculating my age, this was written a few years back. Reposting it a few years later)

Let me explain.

        A few years back, on a warm, balmy afternoon when I was forty-three, I sat completely lost in a quiet reverie. I was surrounded by life’s albums; unearthing my kids’ baby photos, tracing the different houses I had lived in, and flipping through pages of countries I had visited. Deep in nostalgia, I stared closely at those frozen, smiling faces until my breath caught and a sudden panic gripped my heart. That girl in the photographs looked so incredibly young, so fiercely full of hope for the future; the future ,I was living in the present. She was dreaming of a distant tomorrow then, but it was the exact, heavy reality I was living and breathing in at that very moment. Today. 

Was her hope for a better tomorrow fulfilled? Or was the hope in her eyes justified? What about the fears, the dreams, and hopes behind that frozen, smiling face?

I love birthdays, so I decided to do a "message in a bottle" exercise for myself. A birthday wish to the fifty-year-old me! Yes, I do love birthdays!!

“Teach us to number our days, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Psalm 90:12

One of my earliest promises, from many decades back remained my anchor:

“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.” Psalm 27:13-14

WAIT FOR THE LORD

        Looking through those photos and happy faces, I was strangely left with an unnerving feeling of sadness. A deep sense of loss overwhelmed me.

                I love numbers and patterns. The more I stared at the album, a new thought took root: in seven more years, I would turn fifty.

At forty-three, I was looking ahead seven years to fifty. At thirty-six, in that frozen photo, I had been looking ahead seven years to forty-three.

                I stepped into a temporal time capsule, whooshing through time to my past and then to my future. Time travelling wasn't disorienting; it was extremely clarifying. As the motion stopped and I pulled back into that present moment, I looked down at the “pages” in front of me.

        What would those seven years look like? What better way to hope for the future than to gauge how far I had come from exactly that many years back!

        I remembered my fears and doubts from that particular year. It had been a difficult year. I had not made a plan B. But sitting there at forty-three, I could look back and answer my younger self. Was the hope I carried back then truly hope, or was it just wishful thinking?

Wishful thinking it was.

So, what were my dreams and hopes at forty-three? Would they turn out to be wishful thinking when I turned back the pages of life’s album on my fiftieth birthday?

In that moment, I held my hopes for the future in my hand. I owed it to my future self that my hopes be founded on the truth, and not on wishful thinking.

I won’t bother writing down the fallacy of my “thinking” from seven years back, but I held the immense power to not disappoint my future fifty-year-old self.

A Future Hope vs. Wishful Thinking

“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” 
Hebrews 11:1

The dictionary defines wishful thinking as an attitude or belief that something you want to happen will happen even though it is not likely or possible. 

The Book of Hebrews gives us the key that separates true faith from wishful thinking: 

“All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth... instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one...

...who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; whose weakness was turned to strength... These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised, since God had planned something better for us...”

Hebrews 11

“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.” 

Ecclesiastes 3:11

Happy Fiftieth Birthday, Darling Girl!

So there is me at forty-three, wishing my future self a very happy fiftieth birthday!

I was hoping that as He has set eternity in my heart, my view of my future would not be through the microscope of wishful thinking, but through the telescope of faith. 

All my human desires may never get fulfilled, but His promise of endurance stands firm:

God is faithful; he will not let me be tempted beyond what I can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.” 

1 Corinthians 10:13

All my plans may fail, and maybe relationships will disappoint, but the Lord will remain faithful.

“The poor will see and be glad—you who seek God, may your hearts live! The LORD hears the needy and does not despise his captive people.” 

Psalms 69:32-33

Instead of hoping that life would get easier, I hoped I could live out a life in the pursuit of things that will last.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moths and vermin destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven...” 

Matthew 6:19-20

Instead of hoping that life would be a bed of roses, I lived to understand that the joy of the Lord is my strength.

“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in God my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer; he enables me to tread on the heights.” 

Habakkuk 3:17-19

For the seven years that lay ahead of me then, this was going to be my blueprint for hope. I prayed that I might have: 

The grace of Esther.
The loyalty of Ruth.
The wisdom of Abigail.
The favour of Leah.
The election of Mary.

“Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” Luke 1:38

Today- 2026

        Years have passed since I sat at forty-three, tracing these timelines, but today I am reassured that the steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; His mercies are new every morning. Great is His faithfulness. Generations may pass and seasons will shift, but because He has set eternity within my heart, my hope remains anchored to the truth of His word: 

“In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Christ Jesus from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.” 

He who began this good work is faithful to carry it to completion. 

See you at fifty, darling girl. Happy Birthday.