Have you ever had one of those mirror moments?
You know the kind.
You’re not falling apart. You’re not spiraling. You’re not standing there dramatically clutching your pearls (who really wears them nowadays, right?) because another birthday showed up on the calendar.
But you pause for a second.
Maybe it’s what’s looking back at you in the mirror and you’re thinking, “Who are you?”
And you think, Well… things are changing.
Your face looks a little different. Your body feels a little different. Your energy has become a limited-time offer. Your hair is changing color. And somewhere along the way, sleeping wrong became an actual injury. I don’t know when that happened, but I would like to file a formal complaint.
Aging is strange like that. It can make you laugh one minute and feel a little tender the next — because it’s not just about wrinkles or hormones or clothes fitting differently. It’s about realizing you are not the same woman you used to be, and learning how to stop comparing today’s version of you to yesterday’s.
And I’ll be honest — I have not exactly skipped joyfully into the whole “getting older” season like, ‘Bless the Lord, another wrinkle of wisdom has appeared upon my face.’
No ma’am.
Sometimes I look at pictures from ten years ago and think, Who was that wrinkle-free woman? I see the changes in my face. I notice things shifting in areas I never gave permission to. And let’s not even fully unpack menopause, because that deserves its own support group, snack table, altar call, and maybe a commemorative fan.
Everything changes. Your body. Your sleep. Your clothes, which suddenly develop an attitude. Things that used to fit now look at you like, “We don’t know her.” Your emotions start acting like they have a group text you were not invited to. One minute you’re fine, and the next minute you’re crying because someone on a cooking reel made homemade biscuits and called them “like grandma used to make.”
And then there are those seasons where you genuinely wonder, Am I having a nervous breakdown? — only to find out your body is simply trying to figure out how to function without those lovely hormones riding shotgun anymore.
It is a whole adventure. A sweaty, emotional, pants-don’t-fit-right adventure.
But underneath all the funny — and if we don’t laugh which we definitely need to laugh, we may start throwing decorative pillows around — there is something deeply holy happening.
There is an invitation from God to stop living in comparison with who we used to be, and start paying attention to who we are becoming now.
* * *
Because the younger version of you was beautiful. She really was.
Maybe she had more energy. Maybe her skin was smoother. Maybe she could eat pizza at 10 p.m. and wake up with no consequences like some kind of supernatural being even though I was never that girl. Maybe she had dreams and fire and a version of yourself you sometimes wish you could borrow for a little while.
But she also had battles you forget about. Insecurities you may not carry the same way anymore. Fears you’ve outgrown. Wounds she didn’t know how to name. Pressure she didn’t know how to release. Questions she didn’t have answers for yet.
And you know what? She got you here — with a whole lot of Jesus.
She carried you through seasons you didn’t fully understand. She survived the hard conversations, the disappointments, the heartbreaks, the parenting seasons, the stretching, the waiting, the starting over, the getting back up, and the moments when all she knew to do was keep moving and whisper, “Lord, help me, I can’t do this without you.”
So maybe she doesn’t need to be resurrected. Maybe she needs to be honored. Thanked. Released with love.
Because God is not asking you to become who you used to be. He is inviting you to know who you are now.
And friend, that woman is worth knowing.
* * *
She may move a little differently. Need more rest. Require reading glasses in every room because apparently one pair is never where you need it. But she also carries wisdom, discernment, stories, and a deeper understanding of God’s grace.
She has learned that not every battle deserves her energy. She has learned that peace is not boring — it’s expensive — and she is not handing it out like party favors anymore. She has learned that saying no is not mean, that rest is not failure, and that God is faithful even in the seasons that don’t feel glamorous.
* * *
“She is clothed with strength and dignity, and she laughs without fear of the future.”
— Proverbs 31:25 NLT
I love that verse because it does not say she laughs because she got her twenty-five-year-old body back. It doesn’t say she laughs because nothing ever changed, nothing ever sagged, nothing ever ached, and her hormones behaved like perfect little angels.
It says she is clothed with strength and dignity. That means her confidence is not coming from youth, a number on the scale, a wrinkle-free forehead, or the ability to walk into a room and remember why she went in there.
Her confidence is coming from something deeper — from what God has placed on her.
Strength. Dignity. Wisdom. Grace. Faith. A life and a future held by Him.
And because of that, she can laugh without fear of what is ahead, because she knows the same God who carried her through her younger years is the same God who will carry her through her older ones.
* * *
God is not asking you to spend the rest of your life trying to become who you used to be. He is inviting you to become fully present with who you are now.
So let her laugh. Let her breathe. Let her wear the comfortable pants. Let her stop apologizing for needing rest. Let her stop chasing the old version of herself and start walking with Jesus right here — in this body, in this season, with this story, with this wisdom, and with this oil.
She is clothed with strength and dignity.
She can laugh without fear of the future.
Why? Because God is with her every single step of the way as He’s always been.