Get Out of Jail Free

This month we rolled into a new year, which always feels to me like a fresh start, a pardon for all the stuff I didn't accomplish the year before and an opportunity to try again. This past week, I also stepped into my 50th year of life. Half a century-- that's how long I've been alive now. I've wondered for several years how i'd feel about this birthday. I think i was bracing for the "OMGosh-I'm-so-OLD" meltdown, but it never happened. I did think about all the things I've been meaning to do for a very long time--some of them for decades--and I did have to make a conscious choice to not let guilt bulldoze me for failing in so many ways, but at the same time I realized that I might have a few more decades to go and therefore I can just start now. 


So, I have a list of stuff I want to do each day--not all of them every day, but at least one for a little while each day. And one of those things, Number Four in fact, is "blog," so here we are. Another one is "play the keyboard," so today I moved furniture all over the house and now my keyboard is in the front room. It was sort of hidden before, or at least as hidden as something can be in a little apartment, because I felt guilty every time I looked at it. But the new year/birthday combination gave me permission to shake off all that guilt and give it another shot.


One more thing I keep thinking about now that I'm 50 is Jubilee. In a nutshell, Jubilee was something that happened every 50th year in the lives of the Israelites when all debts were cancelled and all property went back to its original owners. Every person who had been forced to sell himself into slavery to pay debts was released. Everything was brand new. Everyone got a "Get Out of Jail Free" card. 


That's the amazing thing about God. He's so into fresh starts. When you get saved, it's a new birth. Then, about five minutes later, you mess up, and suddenly you're begging for a fresh start and He says, "Okay." Thirty-five years later you hit 50 and realize you never got around to learning Spanish like you thought you would and He's still right there, saying, "Here's another fresh start." So I'm taking Him up on it.


Welcome to my Jubilee.