50 Days Before 50: A Practice of Reflection, Release, and Renewal
I love celebrating others and I love being celebrated. As a matter of fact, give me a reason to celebrate someone, something, or an occasion, I will do it. Growing up my birthday was celebrated, but it was celebrated with my siblings or at minimum because my birthday is three weeks after Christmas and bills were due. When I was old enough to celebrate my birthday, it was big every year and grand every milestone. When we approach the milestone birthdays, we may plan birthday parties, dinners, and trips, but getting older also inspires us to reflect. Reflecting brings pause. I started on my journey to fifty at forty nine. I felt the need to accomplish all these things at forty-nine to close out the decade, but near the end of forty-nine, I felt an inner nudge to slow down and sit with my life rather than rush to get the party started. Instead of counting down with excitement and anxiety. One night in November I had a dream. The dream was so vivid, kind of scary, and a message that hours after I woke up and went about my day, I still remembered every detail of the dream. I thought doing fifty days before I turn fifty would be a great idea, but I didn’t know what that would look like other than doing things I never did before. Prayer came to mind and themes began to flood my brain. I thought of three close sister friends to kick off fifty days to fifty in prayer with me. The idea from one of my sisters was, “let’s do it every day!” We said, YES! For me, that Yes became fifty intentional days of prayer, journaling, and quiet listening—not to fix anything, but to honor what had already been lived.
Every morning at 5am we started with God. There were good days, bad days, sick days, sleepless days, and travel days, but we pushed through praising and thanking God, and praying for one another. This stretched my thoughts to how many of us needed prayer and encouragement because we are in a season that has been overwhelming for so many. So, while I was being poured into every morning leading to my fiftieth birthday, why not pour into others. The fifty days before fifty started on Thanksgiving Day. I remember having about three hours of sleep, but I was excited to start that 5am morning with my sisters. In the past, I would watch what I prayed for because tests and trials that I didn’t want would come out of my prayers. As a result, I took my time praying and was careful what I would say to God. So, I declared these fifty days were going to be great and I was not holding back! The test and trials came, but how I responded and reacted, was the blessing. Growing, persevering, pushing through, and trusting God during the fifty days before fifty was perfect!
There was something powerful about the consistency of showing up each day. The experience reminded me that reflection creates room for renewal. When we allow ourselves to pause and listen, we create space to release what we carry that is not ours, what no longer serves us, and to make peace with what shaped us, and where we are going. We stop measuring ourselves by timelines and expectations and begin listening to what our spirit is asking for and need now. This was so good for me, I developed a habit that I would continue after I turned fifty, not because I didn’t spend time with God already, but the intention is different on this journey. You don’t have to be approaching a milestone birthday to begin a reflective journey. Life itself offers countless invitations to pause and reflect, to spend time with God, to journal transitions, for beginnings and endings, or when we are feeling a shift. When I stepped into 50, I carried less weight and more awareness. Reflection didn’t change my past, but it changed how I held it. And in that shift, I found renewal—not as something dramatic or loud, but as a gentle, steady becoming. A new beginning. A new decade. My Jubilee Year (Leviticus 25). - Laverne Cheeseboro
Every morning, we continue to share prayers and encouraging messages to sisters. If you --would like to be added to receive a prayer and message, text “prayer and encourage me please” with your name to 267-237-0706. If you would like to know who Laverne Cheeseboro is, you can find me on my website http://thelaverneexperience.com
