Thoughts on turning 50
Seeking Encouragement in the God Who Never Leaves
Hello Friends,
I turned 50 this month and seeing the grace of God in so many ways in my life.
This is a transitional season for me and my family, as our children are leaving the nest. For a parent, seeing children leaving home is part of normal life - it’s sad but necessary. It’s also a blessing to see our own offspring growing up and learning to stand on their own feet.
I’ve shared my recent thoughts in a video (linked below) how thoughts about leaving have affected me a lot these days.
The other day I was reading about how mothers particularly have a high concentration of certain pain suppressing receptors in the brain. It helps mothers to cope with the circumstances surrounding birth and child rearing - and the author specifically mentioned the emotional pain that comes with sending kids off to college.1
The way it spoke directly of my current situation made me smile: God sends small pieces of encouragement my way, reminding me that he sees and cares about even the details of my life.
This season often has me wondering:
How do Christians hold on to hope and joy - as the Bible tells us to do- when there are anxieties and worry about the future?
How do I overcome discouragement when I see life passing by and loved ones moving on… ?
How do you still create when you’re low on inspiration, and times spent reading the Bible and praying leave you feeling ineffective, and still a bit helpless?
These are genuine struggles I’ve been having over the past few months as I’ve been questioning myself - wondering how to stay strong in the midst of all the challenges in life.
In difficult times, there is one truth I know I can hold on to:
God’s Word is the source of everything that gives life.
If there’s any hope, joy, virtue, or beauty in this world—it flows from Him. To focus on that is better than churning over everything else that drains us of life.
Whatever is good, true, noble, just, pure, lovely, whatever is of good report, think of and meditate on THOSE THINGS.
Meditation is not about emptying the mind, which is impossible - because the brain is always sifting through thousands of thoughts every second. It’s a total deception when people say you can empty your mind and find peace. That is impossible.
What we actually need to do is FILL OUR MIND AND SATURATE IT WITH GOD”S TRUTH . We need to remember that Jesus has said abundant life comes from him — he is our Redeemer, Savior, and Friend. And the Holy Spirit, who walks with us, comforts, teaches, empowers, and never leaves our side even in the darkest days.
Romans 15:13 says,
“Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”2
Even when the world gives us reasons to despair, our anchor is in the Lord, who is always there, steadfast and faithful.
Sometimes it amazes me that life somehow goes on as well it does despite the confusion and chaos we see and hear around us all the time.
The other day after some heavy rain I heard that the roads outside our apartment complex were flooded and traffic was stalled for hours, but I had no clue. Thankfully, my family members were all home at that time so I didn’t even know there was any trouble going on just outside our gates.
I am grateful we actually have electricity and water, and air conditioning that works. I know there are places even in the capital city3 where there’s no guarantee that these things are regularly available. I do appreciate the comforts I enjoy.
When I was younger, I was naive and idealistic. I got married at 25 (half a lifetime ago now) thinking I could be a help to my husband and be useful in God’s work as a supporting hand.
But recently with all that is going on I’ve had genuine doubts about my existence and have wondered, what fruit is there for all our labors?
But then again, you can’t just leave a place and think your problems will all go away. The pain will follow us wherever we go. Every nation has its struggles. Every life has its difficulties, because this is a broken world, full of broken people.
But the more we focus on that brokenness, the more we sink into despair.
Jesus said in John 16:33,
“In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
So what do you do when you know to seek the Lord, but still have anxiety and feel tense? So much seems to be beyond your control, and you can’t just leave the situation.
Apart from taking control over my thoughts, and filling it with God’s word, I know I am in control of what I do with my hands.
When I’m overwhelmed by a sense of helplessness that comes over me, I find a lot of comfort in doing the one thing I can do.
I turn to art.
Doing something creative with my hands is the best thing I can do to bring back that sense of Joy again.
I find a sense of hope and joy comes to me when I create with bright colors, patterns, imaginary scenes, faces and landscapes…. They take my mind off of all the “what ifs” and enable me to focus on the moment.
When my hands are busy, my heart finds rest, it puts me in the most natural state to talk to the Lord.
I’m reminded of this verse in Philippians 4,
“Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God.”
The time I spend in creative projects is the perfect time to pray. My hands are happy and busy creating. And in that flow state I find it so much easier to give thanks to the Lord, expressing all my concerns to him. It’s like when you go out walking with a friend, you find it so much easier to flow in conversation because you’re doing something together.
Art has helped me to process a lot of the grief and emotion that comes with losing or parting from loved ones, whether it’s because of me leaving or them going away.
Psalm 91:11 promises,
“For He shall give His angels charge over you, to keep you in all your ways.”
I pray this all the time for my children. I can’t go with them, but God can. It’s a blessing to be a parent and an empty nest is part of the package, but God is good and takes care of his own.
And this makes me think about Jesus himself, how his entire existence depended on his willingness to leave and seeing others leave.
He leaves the glory of heaven to come down to earth.
He leaves his earthly hometown to go around preaching and healing, and bringing the gospel of hope to whoever would listen.
He saw people leaving him all the time. And one disciple, Judas, left him to betray him for his arrest and execution.
He leaves his disciples when he is taken away to be whipped and go through the torture of being crucified.
He leaves behind his grief stricken mother, Mary, and all the disciples who ran away in fear, leaving him to die alone except for a few faithful ones.
And though he leaves his loved ones on one of the darkest moments in history, he comes back in his resurrected body, returning to comfort and bring hope and joy and new life to the whole world. What an amazing reality.
Jesus promised he would never leave us or forsake us.
And in the bible we see read about many people who struggled but never leave the person or thing that God called them to. And those are the people who saw great rewards and are remembered to this day because of their commitment to never leave.
I think of Jacob wrestling with the Lord’s angel, saying he will never leave until the Lord blesses him. And God does bless him, as he is remembered among the patriarchs.
I think of Ruth, how she declared so boldly and so courageously that Naomi should never ask her to leave. Being a foreigner, Ruth promises to go wherever her mother-in-law was going, which happened to be the land of God’s chosen people. And Ruth ends up becoming an ancestor of Jesus the Messiah himself.
I think about Elisha who refused to leave Elijah when he was going to be taken to heaven. And Elisha’s reward for not leaving was the double portion of Elijah’s power. The scripture records precisely the number of miracles that Elisha did as being twice the number recorded for Elijah.
All these people committed themselves to never leave the situation they were in, and they were rewarded for it.
And in Jesus’ case, he was willing to leave and dealt with seeing others leave. At the same time he never departed from the Father’s purpose for him on this earth.
And this is my meditation, that leaving is not always possible or desirable depending on the circumstances - in some extreme situations especially involving violence or abuse, you really need to leave and get proper help. But aside from that there are certain rewards that come with never leaving. And in the case of others leaving, we just have to remember that Jesus went through all those experiences in intensely painful ways - he knows what it’s like.
We can find comfort in the fact that he of all people knows the pain that comes with leaving and being left behind as he personally experienced all of it.
There have been times I have felt very helpless and I had no idea what to do next.
If you’re there now, my heart goes out to you.
There is hope and joy to be found in the Lord. He is our source for everything.
“…those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles…” (Isaiah 40:31)
There is still beauty. There is still hope. Joy comes in the morning.
Blessings,
Aiko
PS. Let me know in the comments or reply to this email if anything here resonates with your situation. We can all encourage one another!
The book I was reading is titled “Wired for Love” by Stephanie Cacioppo, PhD
Joy is the theme of a challenge going on in the faith journaling community (#faithjournaljuly2025) throughout the month of July and I’ve seen a few of the videos and been inspired by what other believers are sharing.
I live in India, near the capital city of New Delhi
thank you so much. For some reason I received an email from you today, can't remember if I signed up for your recordings and am glad I did. I turned 65 this month of July and all my children have been gone for awhile, my husband passed five years ago and here I am alone. I don't like it but I can't leave being alone. This past month I also had a betrayal of a friend and that has me in a different place also. All the personal sharings and time spent this past two and a half years gone. I see that it may be the Lord gor my protection but still again hard. I moved where I live because my son thought it would be hood that I move closer to him and his wife and to an area I have a bit more familiarity. So I left one of my best friends and had to give my puppy, a gift and emotional support dog because my landlord did not want me to have a pet. In a little over 2 years I had severe covid and hip surgery and a shoulder and knee replacement are up and coming this year and 2026. Still being very young minded and was always being with people in rhe ministry because my husband was a pastor, has left me very very alone. So in saying all this in great vulnerability, I enjoyed your shared journey and watching you cut out the stencil like face and flowers.