Peggy's 50th Birthday Story  
 
In two more days I will walk across the mountaintop ridge from youth into to old age

Yikes! Scary at first, to ponder what I have and have NOT achieved on my 50-year trek up the hill in this half century I've been given. Mid-life crisis is realizing that the end is in sight, so grab what I can to seek satisfaction in life. Eat more desserts? Find more friends? Do more stuff?

Nay, maybe and well, ok yeah, but really this is a time to sit for a moment upon the rocky windswept mountaintop I have climbed, unpack my lunch and survey both sides of the hill before I continue down the other side.

What have I NOT achieved?

I look around at other hikers scattered on the trail ahead and behind me. Some carrying large trophies, gourmet meals in their packs. Some with designer decorated packs, or plastered with travel souvenirs, others part of a well-honed highly synchronized performance team. A pang of envy strikes me.

Other hikers have empty sacks, or dropped them altogether. Some turned back, wandered off, sitting injured on the side waiting for help, or given up altogether. My selfish envy is washed away by, first relief that I escaped such fate, then a touch of guilt and sadness for what I didn't or couldn't do to help them.

But here I sit, having climbed thus far.

I have not yet written that novel I've been planning for 30 years. Nor achieved full-time job status in my ministry! Not even gotten my photos put into memory albums yet.

But what HAVE I done? I take a look around me, and realize I am not alone on this mountain peak. God Himself is sitting by my side! I look up and see in the clouds the faces of my Mother Connie and Father Nels, smiling and worry-free (at last). Behind them are shadows of faces of many ancestors looking down from the heavens, now unburdened from their troubles and young forever.

I look on my right side me and see my strong husband Bob and children, Nelson, Luke, Bruin and Francis, sitting within shouting distance on the rocks.

I look on my left side and see a big group of friends, ISI volunteers, international students and scholars scattered all over the mountainside, some with me now, some who joined our hike for a little while then went on other paths. Still others will join up with me along the next paths down the other side.

I reach into my knapsack, underneath my squished salami & cheddar sandwich, scented by my bruised orange, I pull out my notebook. Signatures from each fellow traveler I've hiked with, whether a few steps or many miles, are there. Some I've met only briefly, others a long way. Some I've even danced around campfires with. Some signatures are freshly penned in sparkly pink gel-ink. Others, half rubbed out #2 school pencils or faded Bic ballpoint. My family members are written in permanent Sharpie ink.

Most are accompanied by short notes of encouragement and comraderie. A few were angry, drunken scrawls that made no sense, others nasty accusations I wish I could erase (why do those stand out more?)

Many blank pages remain.

As I flip through the pages, I realize the book I'm holding in my hands IS my greatest trophy, my novel that I've been writing all along. And as I highlight in flourescent orange my favorite notes from some of the wiser entries, it becomes my trailmap for the path ahead.

I see YOUR name there too, dear friends and prayer partners, helping me write the novel of my life!

Thanks for traveling with me, for today, on this leg of our journey.