What If Aging Has the Wrong Name?

Someone recently wrote:

"Aging should be called Finding. Because through aging you find who and what you were always meant to be. Holding onto youth isn't the goal. Finding yourself is."

I couldn't stop thinking about it.

Because I don't think we're afraid of getting older.

I think we're afraid of becoming less.

Less relevant.

Less needed.

Less beautiful.

Less capable.

Less... us.

But what if we've been looking at this season completely backward?

What if aging isn't a slow process of losing yourself...

What if it's the beautiful process of finding yourself?

I've discovered something in my own encore that I never expected.

With every passing year, I'm caring less about proving myself and more about being myself.

I'm finding the courage to say no without guilt.

I'm finding peace in not having all the answers.

I'm finding joy in simpler things.

I'm finding that my calling didn't end with my career—it became clearer because of it.

I'm finding that confidence doesn't come from looking younger.

It comes from finally knowing who I am.

For years, I believed I was building a career.

Now I realize God was building a woman.

Not the woman who could carry the title.

The woman who could carry the message.

Every promotion...

Every disappointment...

Every relationship...

Every season of waiting...

Every beginning again...

None of it was wasted.

It was revealing the person I was becoming.

That's why I often say,

"I'm not aging. I'm becoming me."

Maybe this is another way of saying the same thing.

I'm finding the woman God had in mind all along.

And here's the beautiful part.

Finding yourself isn't the finish line.

It's the starting line.

Because once you know who you are, you stop trying to become someone else.

You begin living the life you were actually created to live.

Maybe that's what an Encore really is.

Not a second chance to relive your past.

A chance to fully become yourself.

Judy's Note:

We spend the first half of life becoming who the world needs us to be. The second half invites us to become who God created us to be. Don't fear getting older. You may be closer than you've ever been to finding yourself.