This year was the “Big Five-Oh”!   I really had not intended for it to be so significant.   Normally the passing of time has been marked by a subtle gesture of acknowledgment (that involved some kind of flamage), and then on to the next day.  This year was amazing!  Friends drove up from Miami and came out of the wood work.  We had a packed house.   What a treat!  Mike made 17 chickens in our La Caja China (cuban roasting box), food was flowing as was the well wishing, love and affection.  What a way to round a corner.   I guess we never do things in a small way in the Oliver house, and I’m glad!!!

I have always felt like an old soul in a young body…..now I am an old soul in an old body.  Woohoo, I have finally some equilibrium!

Marking half a century really caused some reflection.  Having  rounded a corner forced me to look at some of the all too round areas in my life…..particularly the all too round areas on my body.  Yep that’s right, I am going there.

I had become overweight in my half a century of living.  80 pounds to be exact.  So far I have lost 50 pounds. Hence the title 50 @ 50.  30 more to go.  No, this is not going to be a health conscious blog, or a “how to eat your way to a thinner you” blog, or a weight loss blog or even a “hey you are overweight – get with it” blog.  Actually, this really has nothing to do with weight, it has to do with intentional living.  

I had allowed myself to be ruled by the fragmented parts of myself.

I always knew that I could count on a pick-me-up from my favorite edible treat.  And if a little is good, imagine how wonderful a lot could be?  You would have thought I would have been happier with that type of logic.

Don’t many of us live there?  Governed by impulses that we don’t even know exist.  Those things that corral us into fields of regret.  I have had my fill of regret.  Living from my appetites has always led me into a sickened type of satiation that leaves me bloated with self-loathing and starving for what I was hungry for in the first place.

For instance, bread and butter will neither fill up my “hungry” for companionship, nor will it fill up my longing for acceptance,  affection,  belonging, love, peace, joy, or any of the things that make for a whole, non-fragmented life.  But there is another type of Bread that will.  I will choose that meal, partaking in the Bread of Life.  Such a paradox – to eat my fill of Him and be emptied (of my broken places, fragmented thinking, crushed spirit ) and yet full simultaneously.  Satiated by the Great Meal, Him who loves me most. 

For me, I shall no longer be driven by some unidentifiable angst or wounded place that wages war within me.  I want to be intentional: to live intentionally, to love intentionally and speak intentionally.    I want to live out loud.  How about you?  Do you have some hungry places, some empty places no favorite meal can ever truly fill?  What does it look like to live boldly right out loud, to let those empty places become the seeing-through-to-more places?  Let’s find out together.