On Turning 60

You never know when the next miracle is coming, so you just have to keep showing up.

Sunny Lawrence

James Lawrence is the Iron Cowboy. He once completed 50 Ironman distance triathlons in each of 50 states in 50 days. It was an inspiring feat. Then he decided that wasn’t enough. So he did 100 Iron distance triathlons in 100 days. He “just” did those around him home base, though. He’s an impressive and inspiring athlete. If you have a chance to watch either of his documentaries, I highly recommend them.

My favorite scenes, though, are of him with his family. He and his family are serious Mormons and orient their days and lives toward Him who gives all things meaning. Though they are Mormon, they strike me as a great deal like Orson Scott Card, whose search for Truth might eventually lead them to the Church. We pray for that.

I was a triathlete in high school without knowing it. I grew up next to a lake, road my bike everywhere I could, and started running at 15 to burn off the crazy. I loved all three sports, even though running was the only one I really treated as a sport until college, when I began swimming laps because it felt so great to do so. My junior year of college the Doc Spackman Triathlon was inaugurated in Southern Illinois. It was a revelation, and I loved it. Though there were seasons in my life I trained significantly less, and occasions I trained not at all, I always craved the feeling of completing a really intense brick (2 of the three events) or full distance.

This month I turn 60. I should have some feelings about it, but I am not at all certain that I do. I was joking with my older daughter that while 60 is a decade older than 50, 59, which I have been for a year now, is a decade older than 49. So what? Do I know more? Do I love better? Do I understand God and His Church the way I ought to considering I’m certainly over halfway done at this point?

Perhaps I understand better than when I was younger in no small part thanks to a holy priest who regularly hears my confession. I now not only “know” that God loves me, I feel it. I feel loved by the God of the Universe who numbers all the hairs on our heads. He sees when every sparrow falls. He loved me into life no less than my children and grandchildren. He need not have created me. He didn’t require a Jennifer. But He loved me and wanted me with him forever. I am humbled and tearful, joy-filled and awestruck by such awareness. Awareness hardly even covers it. I feel it. I feel Him.

That seems like a big enough change by itself to begin a new decade. But that kind of knowledge is necessarily accompanied by all kinds of other things. I have at long last forgiven myself for the many stupidities, selfishnesses, and sins that I have committed in my life. How could I not? Father forgives me every time I go to confession. Am I somehow more important than He is? Certainly not.

I no longer think of taking care of myself as the lowest priority. I am a child of the King of Kings. While I will never subscribe to the “God wants me to be happy” silliness, I see the ways in which my body is a miracle, and I should not destroy it intentionally or through neglect.

Now a deep joy is always with me. I sleep better. I concentrate more fully on the people around me and the works I read. I’m calm in a way I haven’t been before. I feel grateful for every moment I get to spend in His presence. I’m blessed to have fairly easy access to an Adoration chapel and often get to Mass more than once a week.  

For those of you reading this who are saying to yourselves, “Wow, you’re an idiot. It really took you almost 60 years to discover that God loves you?” I’m so pleased that you don’t understand. I pray that everybody everywhere simply grows up with the certainty of God’s deep, unending love as their default. I grew up with the central belief that I was too annoying to have normal relationships. I always assumed I would never get married or have biological children. I kind of assumed that the children I would adopt would eventually want to get away from me as well. Imagine my surprise at having a loving husband, children, and now grandchildren.

What I love so much about what Sunny Lawrence said about miracles is that it’s true. And the truth, no matter how seemingly obvious, is always worth saying. Someone might not know it. I have always shown up for school and work with a can-do attitude. I’ve shown up for my family the same way. To the extent I understood how, I showed up for God and the Church. But this is different. Miracles happen every day, everywhere. We often miss them because they aren’t what we are looking for, but they are definitely there. And now that I see that God’s love isn’t just a thing to know but to be embraced by, I see them.

I see Saint Anthony never letting my family lose anything in our house for more than a couple of hours. I see Saint Rita with her arms around my daughter who was abused by a man who should have loved her. I see the guardian angels running next to my grand babies. I see memory care residents holding hands and consoling one another in their confusion. I see clouds. And the Mississippi River. And the perfect ecosystem of Jefferson Barracks Park. And the protection the drivers in Saint Louis receive as they race past stoplights and speed limits.

Even the crosses we all receive look like love now. Our suffering unites us to Our Blessed Lord. When I am grateful for the lessons I receive in pain, the more united to Him I feel. I see His hand in my endurance.

I see my children finding holy spouses and growing in their faith together. I see lost loved ones admitting that human life is sacred. Through it all I stand in bewildered awe at His glory. All I have to offer Him is to keep showing up for His miracles. When he sustains me for one more day, that’s what I can offer Him in return, that my every thought, word, and action is oriented to His glory.