Why Being in Your 40's in 2019 is Amazing?!

Let's be honest, aging isn't always the greatest.  I mean I have wrinkles and saggage (I just made up that word, but you know what it means) in areas that weren't even a thought in my twenties.

I've also worked with teenagers for 20 years and while its fun and rewarding, it can easily make you feel even older.  The vocabulary, styles and humor are constantly changing so just when you think you are tracking, something changes again and you are once again reminded that YOU ARE OLD!

You can all but feel like an idiot when the latest social media outlet or popular device updates and now that program you use every day is unknowable and you have to relearn it, and once again you feel dumb or old, when you know you are neither one of those things.

Your 40's aren't old!!!! They are enough experience to have learned from some mistakes and able to walk in wise directions and you still have half or more of your life left!  That is something to celebrate.  Technology advances and constant changes mean, if you are in your 40's you've seen more change than the generation above you and you've be able to adapt to an ever-changing world coming on your heels.

Ellen Degeneres, on her show, Ellen, has done a few segments highlighting the Baby Boomer/Millennial gap.  Let me tell you it has been HILARIOUS!  Take a minute to watch them, then come back and finish reading, because not only did it make me laugh, it gave me a thought that answers the question in the title of this post.

The first one I saw from about a month ago, introduced old technology or items we used pre-technology and challenged a millennial to use them. Then Ellen did it again in this episode.

Weren't those great?! I am not a Baby Boomer.  As someone who is born in 1978, I am Generation X, sometimes called Xennial, as a micro generation for someone in between the Generation X and Millenial.  So I don't fit either of the generations highlighted in Ellen's show segment, but as I watched the video, my first thought was, every Millennial (1980 - 1995) and even Gen Z (1996-2009) should watch this and more importantly do this challenge with some older technology so that they come to understand that older people aren't stupid, its just not what they know.

Because if you watch the videos above the high school and college student look like idiots and its because they don't know what they are doing, its not because they are actual idiots.  In fact, both demonstrate with personal facts about themselves, that they are in fact, smart.

So what does all this have to do with 40 year olds being awesome? I will tell you.  I alluded to this in the beginning, but we are the best lifeline to both generations.  We remember what it was like to use a rotary phone and be tethered to a phone cord as we talked with friends on the phone.  We remember life before caller id and before voice mail.  We lived before the internet or cell phones were a thing and that means we understand how to tell time on an analogue clock and how to read a map.  We knew what is was like to get up to turn the tv channel as a kid and make sure you were there to watch that show you loved because it wasn't getting taped, but we also have migrated with the times.  We've gone from cassette tapes to CD's to MP3 players to smart phones with streaming services and digital downloads.  We had a myspace account and know what "You've Got Mail" is talking about.  You may not have a Snapchat account, but you know what it is.  We are the timeline and that is beautiful!

We are the past and the future in one and I think that might make us the smartest people on the planet :).  When this world has you feeling old, just remember you know how to do so many things and you are up to continue on the learning journey.  We will have fun as we get most of the jokes along the way too!  Happy Wednesday! Christmas is next week, so I will be sharing back on here in two weeks.  Enjoy your Christmas and if you don't have a lot of people to celebrate with, look out for others in the same boat and make it more fun for all!

Full Circle

As a girl, I never really felt like I had a place.  I was loved, but with my parents divorced, each creating new families, made it hard for me to feel like I had my own family.  

When I married Kevin, I distinctly remember a family trip to Disneyland where I realized, I had married into the same position I had growing up.  I loved my husband and step daughters, but they were a family before I came a long and I wasn't really sure where I fit.  

Obviously, we powered through the growing pains of our new family, but its been remarkable how adding our two littles has given me what I never had before.  Sure I have a definite place as mom, but the true blessing has been has its restored the heart of that little girl in me.  Raising them with Kevin and being a family has done a remarkable job of healing the wounds of my childhood.  Watching my kids live the benefits of mom and dad in the same house, has given me what I never got.  

Isn't God amazing?! All those years, God was walking with me through the hard times even if I didn't see him and to show his love for me in unique ways because the truth is, I always had a place in his family.  I was always wanted and always part of something beyond myself, even if I couldn't see it.  God saw it and God saw me. 

We live in a world that is cruel at times and we encounter people that don't always use kindness as their compass, but God is there and his time table isn't the same as ours, but not seeing it, isn't the same as it not happening.  

As we look at Turkey Day approaching and we make our thankful list, let's look at the ways God has been good to us, not only in this year but in our life.  

Can you think of some way you felt you were forgotten that later you saw the story come full circle?  

God loves you and is always working in your life.  Its not about what makes sense in the moment, but when we know we can trust our Creator and Savior, we can trust that he is there even when life is not what we hoped it was.  

Besides the story above, I can't tell you how many times God showed me was listening and cared.  

I had a major crush on this guy in high school and we went out once or twice, but it just never came together.   We rediscovered each other in college and ended up dating for a couple years.  He wasn't the one, but while we were dating, I found an old high school journal where I asked God to let me date him.  There was more to it than that, but I thought, "wow, God saw me."  

In high school while living in Germany, we went to Israel and visited the Holocaust Museum.  They have a Garden of Remembrance where trees are planted in memory of those non-Jewish people who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.  A tree is planted once that person dies.  When I was there, Corrie Ten Boom had just passed away.  I loved her and her story and wanted so desperately to see her tree.  It was time to go and I still had not found her tree.  I told God just how much I wanted to see it and asked if he would let me find the tree. Another woman in our tour and I were talking and as we talked I discovered we'd gotten lost and had been separated from the group.  As we turned to head back the way we had come, I looked down and guess what I saw?  You guessed it - Corrie Ten Boom's tree.  That wasn't a life altering request but it mattered to God, because I matter to God!  Being seen and valued is one of the greatest gifts we can ask for. 

Isn't that worth being grateful for?  Have a Happy Thanksgiving everyone! - Carrie