Ashe!!! & Amen.. This reminds me of a Reba McEntire song (yes, I listen to Country music - smile), entitled “Is There Life Out There”. Rev., thanks for the reminder!!!

I am about turn 37 this Saturday. I am definitely jumping NOW!!!! It is such a scary thing since that is not the norm for me.

But I can’t live until I
Finish my MA paper,
Pass my prelims,
Defend my dissertation proposal,
Write my dissertation,
Defend my dissertation,
Get a job,
Buy a house,
Get tenure,
Adopt a child…..
Yeah, I see what you mean.
Thank you Dr. Weems.

Just as I thought I was ready to go forward from the place of making excuses and waiting on somethings, I may be halted and forced to wait.
I’ve been having issues with my right breast and have a mammogram scheduled for this Friday.
On another note, I was too in awe to speak to you last night. But felt blessed and favored to be in the room with my most favorite women in the world.
Thanks for this blog. Every piece, including those about cooking, is life-giving.

Pssst CAJ, I know the song and like it also.

@Liletha, 37 years old? Take it from me, you’re still a baby.

@socgrad, whoa. LOL.

@CP, I will be hurt if you don’t come up to me while we’re here.

I stopped making to do lists. They became oppressive. I think one can live and not LIVE at the same time. There are things I am waiting for because I don’t have control over them. But because I don’t have a husband, a child, or a house, I’m starting a birthday travel tradition…a business…a teen band to go with the teen choir…I thought I was busting this version of living out of the seams. Wait, I think I started too much before that I now have to finish before I can start something else. Doh, Maybe today I should focus on finishing. Then the question becomes: Is it living while on the way to living? (I’m kinda waiting for seminary graduation. It’s cramping my style.)

The sister that isn’t living is going to want to know what living looks like before she tries it. Nothing I have said has made her jump yet. I need some examples of LIVING.

Reverend Renita I am in total agreement with you! I truly get it.

As a young woman growing up in a small, midwestern town, I was admonished to “wait” to find the right “one” and marry (never did get married), to “wait” and marry before having children (never did have children), “wait” for the right “one” before purchasing a home of your own (here I disobeyed and purchased a condo even though I did not have a husband), to “wait” and retire at 65 years old (here I disobeyed again and believed God and took the “early out” Praise God).

The point is that instead of waiting and waiting now, as you know, I am in seminary and really living from day to day a life that is more of whom I am! I hope more women will listen to the Lord “earlier” in life rather than later and not misunderstand and miss out on their dreams. Speaking from experience…you don’t get that time back.

You hit it out of the park again on your blog Reverend Renita. Thank you so much!!

This is a beautiful reminder–thank you!

AMEN! The Clark Sisters “Livin” is the perfect companion song to this topic. See it at [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdhqGoZCgzE]. This is the day that the Lord has made let us REJOICE and be glad in it!

@Liletha I don’t know what it was about 37 but that was a major turning point for me. It set the pace for me to prepare for 40 which is coming up in a few weeks. It was during the last three years that I began to have face the reality that it was time to start doing somethings for me.

I am so thankful for this blog because it is like God sends me reminders of what I’m supposed to be doing when I get slack.

@CP I pray that all will go well on Friday and that the report will be a good one.

We have to remind ourselves ladies, That life is for the living… So let’s live it to the fullest!!!

Living~ taking in air and being in the moment. This is often contrary to what we as women are taught to do. In spite of that I am living! I enjoy life, but I often find myself torn. I have to keep that in check. Wow the rules for living seem so set. However, it is the company of my sisters and the encouragement of my husband that keeps me trying new things and not being stuck in a rut.

So yes I should be working on my dissertation, typing a proposal for a sabbatical request due in two days, supervising my daughter’s project, but I am peaking on my favorite blog because it is what I want to do right now. All those other things will get done in God’s time, but if they don’t I will keep on living.

I took a nap on a Tuesday warm fall day cause yall I was a little tired. I made me some cabbage cause I wanted it. I will write some poetry before going to bed cause it helps me unwind. So I pose the question, “What have you done for you lately?” A twist on Janet’s song.

Well, as a mid twenty-something sistah, I consider myself the queen of dreaming dreams and then hastily acting upon them. So, I actually need to wait for the right opportunity and my godmother would say “after I have passed my preliminaries” to implement my various schemes to rid myself of the academy.

As someone who is wedded to a PhD program through papers, deadlines, and fantasies of tenure, I often long to jump into something new because being married to a PhD program it is rarely bliss. But, I realize for me that jumping into a PhD program is only one step but remaining in the water . . . remaining in the program is a struggle of wits and sanity.

So to SOCGRAD and C. LeAnn I understand the struggle.

And it’s a wee bit troublesome that I equate living with doing . . . achieving. Perhaps the two are intertwined because the things I want to achieve or directly connected to things, people, and creative energies that make “me” happy and make my many life’s purposes evident.

All: from someone who is surrounded by sick people daily: JUMP. JUST JUMP. I don’t need to tell you how many regrets I’ve heard from people in hospice. Just jump.

**sound of WIT running and jumping off another cliff dying to see where she’ll land this time**

Thank you!!! Rev. Reems

I have learned to live and enjoy life while doing many things. I’m getting ready to make a big change in my life - but I guarantee you that I will still be enjoying my life through the changes. God has been good to me. My intent is to share that love God has for me with other throughout this coming transition; not at the end. Thank you Rev. Dr. Weems

@Woman In Transition: seconding your comments about just taking the jump.

I am turning 49 next week. I have had a lot of good times and some not so good times. I took some big risks and most of them paid off! I regret the things I didn’t do more than I regret the mistakes and messes.

I learned from the mistakes and messes. There are no benefits from neglected opportunities.

@ Angela R - thank you for sharing that. I am so ready NOW for what life has in store for me.

@ Rev. Renita - yes I know I am in the “baby” catergory. Glad I am starting at 37 and not 87. Thank you for the blog!!!!!

It took me 43 years to finally go back to school. Now that I am there, I have asked…why did I wait so long? Today I am 44 years old and I think, I think, I am at a place of walking in the true path of my purpose. It is amazing how long we wait to fulfill our God given purpose. It is my prayer that every person, especially woman, who read this installment will begin to live thier life, not their husbands, mothers, or someeone elses. God gave them one life…their life. Our thanksgiving to God is to live that life. My two cents for today! Ashe!!!

To Sister CP I am sending my love and prayers to you.

I have thought about jumping and actually decided that I would and then I turned to try and find the bunjee cord that keeps snapping me back to where I was before… It resembles and umbilical cord to me…. I just can’t leave my mom. smiling.
Thanks Dr. Weems!

Thanks for this, Dr. Weems. But can I say that I really need you to do some more talking about the economy because I don’t understand anything of what’s going on - except, of course, that this moment is important and unprecedented.

I am glad that this blog is still up.
Dr. Weems it is always a delight…
Thanks to all of you who said a prayer for me and sent well-wishes.
I convinced the doctor to take a look at my mammogram images, since I will be out of town during the 7-10 days it will take them to get back to me with results.
…Dense tissue in my breasts and I am 40 something (41) is the cause of the recurring intense pain I’ve been having in my right breast for the last three months the week before and the week during my menstrual cycle.
I wrote an commentary once titled “It’s better to know than to not know” on my fear of being testing for HIV several years after leaving the military because I assumed that it was an automatic during my annual civilian physicals…
I dreaded this appointment today and had imagined everything, except my funeral, leading up to it, but “It’s better to know than to not know”. Get your annual mammograms!
Have a great weekend and thanks again!

Dr. Weems, thank you for this post. I may have to repost this on my blog. I really needed this. I have been asking myself at the age of 40, “Where do I go from here?”

I’m glad too, CP, that this blog piece is still up. My plate has just been too full this week to come up with another post. Maybe God knew that you needed the well-wishes of the women on this blog.

We are all happy to hear that your test results came back negative. Praise God.

So wonderfully stated! Indeed, stop procrastinating, and really live! My mother Rev. Annie Travis sent this to me. Thank you

Raison

@ CP - Praise HIM….I am so happy to here the report

@Raison
Welcome to the blog. Your mothers obviously loves you. Now live!

Rev Weems,

I just want to say that your books were like water in the wilderness for me.

A few years ago, while I was in graduate school, I read “What Matters Most”. During this time, this book helped me to examine the different layers of myself which were known and unknown to me. I had to learn how to reconcile each part and experience in my life towards accomplishing the goals that I needed to accomplish for that season. Next to reading the bible, graduate studies, exercising my creative writing skills, and working out, reading “What Matters Most” was one of my favorite leisure activities.

Today I just finished reading “Showing Mary”.

Its has been a little over one year since I earned my Masters degree and I am still with the same employer- whom I have been with for the last nine years. I have been seeking opportunities for advancement within my field but nothing has come through yet. I am also on a mission to pay off credit card debt and student loans that I have accumilated over the years. I have a plan (a severe tightening of the belt) in place to pay off this debt within the next three years. Despite the accomplshiments and sacrifices that I have made thus far, occassionaly, I feel left behind and that I have a lot of catching up to do - (Based on my observation of my peers) This experience in comparing myself to other has caused me to lose my focus. I stopped enjoying myself with the little things that made me happy. I became more interested in doing things that i thought would make me more appealing to others. As a result of this, i found myself depleted, void of motivation, and wondering -”What Happened”

Yes, I became undone for a minute. But thanks be to God who hears my prayers and sends a word in due season.

For all the times that I felt behind my peers in terms of education, marriage, having children, finances, and home ownership, the chapter on “Late Bloomers” in Showing Mary helped me to make sense of it all. You spoke directly to my heart in this chapter and there is a tear stain on the first page as proof.

Thank you again Rev Weems for your insight, wisdom, and boldness; and for speaking the truth for all seasons!

Peace and Blessings!

Thank You for this! A good reminder! I will be 41 on Friday, this will give me something to think about!

This touched me in ways that I can’t explain. Thank you.

Dr. Weems,

This is my first time posting, even though I’ve been a reader for a little while.

Talk about living… I’m in my last year of seminary, working “part-time” as a youth minister, and full-time as a chaplain…busy, busy, busy, but I’ve never been more alive. Somehow I find time to hang out with my friends/family and go to dollar burger nights at the local pub. Even though I’m more busy than ever, I’ve slowed down my life by taking public transportation to work, which is much more relaxing than driving. I am 27 years old and I ride my bike around town to run errands and to go to the gym. I’ve learned to be consistent with my work-outs. Some days I’m only at the gym for 20 minutes doing crunches and weights. Other days I don’t go at all and just take a walk. And yet some days I’m doing an hour of cardio. I found this quote by Albert Ellis who developed Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy, “I love my work and work at loving. That is the secret of my present unusually happy state.” I love it!

No, I don’t own a house, have a husband, nor have a child, but I’m alive and living. The key to my living is loving, most importantly loving myself, which has helped me to love others.

-Busy, Living, and Loving; Nicole