50.

I turned 50 yesterday. That number feels…impossible. Not because I’m afraid of aging, or chasing youth. I’ve earned every single year, every stretch mark, scar, gray hair, and lesson.

I just can’t believe I’m here because, for most of my life, I never pictured myself anywhere down the road.

I wasn’t one of those little girls who dreamed about her wedding or imagined what she’d be when she grew up. I didn’t plan out my life in neat rows, husband, house, babies, career.

It’s been like walking through a series of motion-sensor-lit rooms. Each one stays completely dark until I step forward, and then…click…the light comes on just enough for me to take the next step. Then the next. Then the next. One stage of life after another. Not knowing what’s ahead. Just walking through doors I didn’t always choose, reacting in real time, trying to stay standing.

I stepped into whatever the day held and figured it out from there. I coped. I maneuvered. I read the room. I adapted to whatever atmosphere I was dropped into.

When you grow up around instability, moving from place to place, future-thinking isn’t a luxury you get to enjoy. You focus on now. You manage what’s in front of you. You develop a thousand little skills to navigate the chaos. But you don’t plan a long-term future.

And somehow, here I am at fifty. Still loving. Still learning. Still walking with Jesus. But still unable to see myself “old.”

I’ve wondered why that is.

Lately, I think it’s because I don’t believe I’ll be here. Not because I fear death, but because I believe Jesus is coming soon.

That belief doesn’t stem from doom or fear. It comes from watching the world tilt on its axis, from studying prophecy, from feeling a deep shift in my spirit.

But also from hope.

From an unshakable confidence in His promises. He’s coming for His Bride. And maybe… just maybe… I won’t see eighty or even seventy because I’ll see Him first.

And there’s something else I’ve noticed, too.

My friendships have grown few and far between. As I’ve grown in Him, He’s removed certain people from my life. And because I wasn’t always faithful or planted in a church community, there wasn’t anyone waiting in the wings to fill the space they left.

It’s been a lonely pruning. But I know it’s been necessary. God is doing a deeper work. And sometimes, that work requires stillness. Separation. Even solitude.

If the days stretch out longer than I expect, I’ll still walk forward with Him, one step at a time. Just like I always have.

I may never be a woman who maps out decades in advance.

But I am a woman who wakes up each day and asks, “What does faithfulness look like today?”

And maybe… that’s enough.

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The Lord will accomplish what concerns me; Your faithfulness, Lord, is everlasting; Do not abandon the works of Your hands. —Psalm 138:8