crazy forty

Turning forty in T-minus eight days has me pondering death. I know that sounds melodramatic, but it’s true. Lately, I just can’t stop thinking about it. 

Someone once told me that turning forty is no biggie, that you’re only as old as you feel. Yea, I’m not buying that. Tell that to my cranky knees and failing eyesight. Tell that to the aches and pains in my joints. 

I hate that my body is changing. I hate that cold temps rock my body with pain I’ve never felt before. I used to love my birthday. Loved it. But that was before now. Forty, yea, I’m not so excited about this one.

Let’s face it, death is a bit scary. The unknown staring us down. Quite honestly, it’s the unfamiliar that makes it hard for me—what kind of mysteries await us? 

As a kid, I worried about dying, mostly because I didn’t want to go to heaven. Yup, you read it correctly; I didn’t want to go to heaven. For some reason, I pictured heaven as a place where we would all spend an eternity painting like Bob Ross. Forever and ever. Yikes! Did I mention that I hate to paint?

In fact, as a youngster I was so scared of dying that some nights I was reluctant to lay my head on my pillow. I would sit up in bed scared to death over, well, death. That’s when I decided it was time to take my worries to the only One who could help me get past these fears—God. 

And He did. 

After my junior year in college, I spent the summer as a counselor at a bible camp called Outlaw Ranch. Every week, a team of us drove to a nearby small town to run a week-long day camp for kids.

After we’d gassed up our seventies van, we headed out to the interstate, little suspecting what was about to take place. A few minutes in to the trip, one of our tires blew. Our van went careening towards the exit. 

In that moment, I knew that I was going to die. The miraculous thing is, I wasn’t afraid, not one bit. I felt satisfied and at peace. If this was my last day on earth, I could handle it. I truly could. An answer to prayer for sure.

Skip ahead, oh, eighteen years or so to the present. Now that I’m an adult, I wonder about death more. Ponder it more. While I know that turning forty doesn’t mean my life is over, there is something sobering about having lived half of it, give or take.

And though I’m no longer afraid of spending an eternity painting, I do have other fears. Mostly, it’s over the unknown. What will heaven be like? Will we see our family, the ones who have gone before us? Will we ever get to sit on God’s lap? Questions like these swirl around inside my brain stirring up new fears—fears over the mystery that awaits us. 

A very wise pastor once told me, “I don’t know what heaven will be like, but I know I won’t be disappointed.” Isn’t that beautiful? His words that day calmed my fears. I figured if God can take a world racked with sin, grief, and pain and still manage to make it beautiful, how much better will it be in heaven where there will be no more pain, grief, sickness or, most importantly, death.

That kind of heaven I can handle. So even if I do have to paint like Bob Ross for an eternity (which I’m pretty sure I won’t) I’m suddenly not so scared. Though I don’t know what awaits me in heaven, I know I won’t be disappointed. And neither will you.