Birthday Nostalgia
By Sarah Burt
Photo by Kym VdP
Have you ever seen that series of photos which show elderly people looking in the mirror and seeing the reflection of their much younger selves? Nurses, soldiers, young brides; I find those photos utterly heartbreaking. Within the decaying body and mind is a vibrant youth screaming, “I was young once.”
I’m writing this on the cusp of my forty-second birthday. Only in medieval times would I be considered ‘old’. I have relatively good health and a lot to be thankful for, but recently, I’ve found myself looking at photos with melancholy welling up inside me. Some of these photos have been of ex-football players. I have been a passionate West Coast Eagles supporter since I was nine, and I remember the young AFL players in their twenties, full of life that I grew up watching on TV, and occasionally in person. Something catches in my throat when I see recent photos of them today. Who is that old man? I barely recognise some of them. Where has the time gone? I find the fact that it’s 30 years since the 1990s a little hard to digest. I even find myself watching old movies I loved in my childhood, feeling grief that all the actors have now passed away.
This same disbelief at the passing of time extends to when I see those I love. My parents are in their mid-seventies. When did they get old? Aren’t they only in their forties? No, I’m the one in my forties. What happened? Time did. Time and the effects of sin on this world. Since Adam and Eve, all of us will get old and die.
A couple of months ago, my husband and I went to a friend’s 50th birthday. All these people were part of the first church I went to when I became a Christian, and it was a fabulous reunion. But something struck me. How are my friends turning fifty? It seems like yesterday that we were all young, and mostly single, Christians in our twenties and early thirties with so much more passion and energy. What happened?
When I was a university student, I often found myself overwhelmed by the youthful passion of some of my Christian peers. Maybe it was because I was a new Christian and still figuring out what it meant to live for Christ? Maybe it was a personality thing? There was certainly a vibe in the circles I mixed in that if your faith was sincere, the way to show it was to go into full-time ministry, whether it was studying at Bible college, doing a ministry traineeship, or missionary service overseas. It seemed like I was the only one who didn't have these plans.
Fast forward twenty-one years since I finished uni......Some of those people have become full-time paid gospel workers, or at least did for some of that time. But many others went into secular employment, married, had children, and live ordinary lives in suburbia. When we were in our late teens and early twenties, it seemed like we had so much energy. So many Christian young adults volunteered repeatedly on camps, mission trips, and for church activities. Why weren't people with kids doing as much 'stuff' as us? Why did they seem so tired? Where was their passion for Christ?
In the past two decades, I've watched some of those young adults experience health issues, such as depression, arthritis, heart conditions, miscarriage, infertility, and various injuries. They've lost loved ones, dealt with loneliness, experienced financial hardship, conflict in relationships, and faced the everyday grind of parenting. I've experienced some of the same. We're older and more tired.
Why do some Christian young adults end up going in different directions from what they had intended at uni? Does the fact that some didn't end up in full-time paid ministry mean Satan has had a victory? Have the weeds of life grown up and choked their fruitfulness?
Sometimes, yes. The weeds do entangle and choke us. We need to be honest here. My mind seems to be more on my children, husband, job, home and to-do list than on making disciples. I’d rather have a sleep-in on a Sunday. Life can feel monotonous and joyless and….How on earth did I manage to hurt my back just by sneezing?
Some Christians I’ve spoken to see the teens as a kind of ‘danger period’ for kids who’ve been raised in the church, that it is the time when they’re most likely to wander away from Christ. As I’ve gotten older, I don’t think there is any real ‘danger period’, rather ‘periods’. Christians can wander away from Christ at any age or stage and that is why we are warned about this in Scripture. The temptation for couples in their thirties and forties with children is to become so completely absorbed in suburban, domestic life.
I’ve seen it happen, and I’ve felt the temptation myself. Suddenly, kids’ sport takes priority on weekends. Suddenly, we’re too tired from the working week and can’t face talking to people at church. It can happen slowly and subtly. Oh, and then the world tells us we need a grander house or investment properties, and we become increasingly enslaved to the white picket fence dream (except we want more than a white picket fence – it needs to have at least five bedrooms and a theatre room).
The temptation is also to sneer at those dynamic twenty-somethings ready to evangelise the world for Christ. Oh you wait ‘til you’re my age. Wait ‘til you have kids. It’s all downhill from here. I have to be careful not to be discouraging and jealous of their boundless energy and swaths of free time. When I look at them, I see myself and my Christian friends from the early noughties. I’m glad we have such passionate young Christians in the world. We’re the body of Christ, after all, and we really do need each other.
Life is painful. Life is hard. Our bodies face decay in this world. There are so many people lost without Christ, and I feel so tired and overwhelmed.
But although outwardly we may be wasting away, inwardly we are being renewed day by day. I've seen that in my Christian brothers and sisters. The zeal is still there, but it's now coupled with wisdom, which comes from age and experience. The rose-coloured glasses have been removed. They witness in their families, their workplaces, in their children's schools.
They are still Christian and God is using them. I praise the Lord for that.
As I approach middle age, I can understand why the world is preoccupied with physical beauty and youth. If this world is all there is, then ageing is terrifying. The melancholy I feel sometimes is nothing compared to what those without eternal hope must feel. When I find myself wondering what happened to myself and my ageing loved ones, the Holy Spirit gently reminds me of the life beyond the grave that I look forward to, thanks to Jesus. One day, I will have a new body that never decays in the kingdom that never ends. I can thank Him for the good memories of my youth, knowing that I have more to look forward to. What is important is that I keep running the race.
I confided to a friend recently that I didn’t really want to turn forty-two. She replied that she feels like her life is just beginning. What a beautiful, gentle rebuke from someone who has become a Christian in recent years and now sees life very differently. While I still plan to get the hair dye out if I see too many greys, I pray that God will continue to transform my heart and mind to see that growing older is a gift that many never get to experience.
If you enjoyed honest storytelling from local Christian women, sign up for free to get stories like this in your inbox on Wednesdays ❤️
Sarah Burt— Regular Contributor
Sarah grew up in a non-Christian family in Albany, met some Christian friends in high school, then Jesus became her Lord and Saviour while at University. She now lives with her husband and two boys, two dogs and a number of chooks on a farm near Tambellup in the Great Southern. She is a school officer by day, and enjoys writing fiction and performing in amateur theatre in her spare time.