Never too late

I just hit a milestone birthday a couple of weeks ago.  Funny--I don't feel any older, but the calendar is claiming that I am. I find myself scratching my head sometimes and wondering when I became old enough to have married children, old enough to be called "ma'am" in the grocery store, and old enough to realize that I am now the age my parents were when I was stepping out into young adulthood.  The cliche's are true.  Time flew by at warp speed, and yet I still remember holding my newborn babies as if it were just last week.  It would be easy to fall into thinking that my life is half over and therefore I should hit the panic button, create a bucket list, or try to repair the broken pieces I left behind in the past, but I choose to think a bit differently.

I'm moving forward and embracing the idea that it's never too late, as long as I'm alive.  And just where did that idea come from?  The obvious answer would be from God's word.  After all, the bible is filled with stories of people who were past their prime, yet God wasn't done with them yet. Abraham, Sarah, Zacharias and Elizabeth, Joshua, Caleb, Daniel, Paul, Simeon and Anna, just to name a few.  But I also got  this idea from the nature that God created.

Introducing, the Woolly Bear Caterpillar.

I am a sucker for nature shows and I recently got to watch one on what life is like in the Arctic.  I was particularly fascinated by the life cycle of the Woolly Bear Caterpillar.  Once hatched, this little caterpillar eats furiously, but only for a short time.  Summers are short in the Arctic and winter is long, so the caterpillar doesn't get to eat enough to be able to cocoon and turn into a moth.  Every year when the ground begins to thaw, the caterpillar also thaws and begins eating as fast and as furiously as ever.  Each year when the first freeze comes, the caterpillar too, also freezes and continues the cycle of eating, freezing, thawing and eating again, until the caterpillar is big enough to form a chrysalis and transform into the moth it was created to be.  This has been known to take up to 14 years to accomplish!

Do you think you could do the same thing over and over again, year after year without seeing any visible results?  Now the caterpillar is just doing what it was created to do and knows nothing of contemplating the results of its actions, but me?  I don't know.  I sometimes think it's too late for me. Too late to continue singing, too late to work on my piano skills, too late to write a book, too late to go back to school and get another degree, too late to...  You get the idea.  But it's never too late--if that is what God has in mind.

And so I am walking forward, not looking back with regrets, but only anxious to see what God has in mind for me.