I turn 50 on July 15, 2027.
Even typing that feels strange.
Not because I’m afraid of turning 50. Actually, I think I’m more curious about this birthday than any birthday that has come before it.
Although, ask me again on July 14.
Because somewhere along the way, I started thinking about Jubilee.
In Leviticus 25, after seven cycles of seven years, the fiftieth year was set apart as the Year of Jubilee. It was a year associated with freedom, release, return, rest and restoration.
Fiftieth year.
You can probably see where my brain went with this.
Now, I know biblical Jubilee was something very specific. It was given to Israel, and I’m not trying to turn it into a promise God made specifically to me because I happen to be approaching my fiftieth birthday.
But I also know what it feels like when something in Scripture catches my attention and refuses to let go.
And Jubilee has my attention.
Maybe because I’m entering this year after a season that has already required so much change.
My word for 2026 has been Renewed, anchored in Isaiah 43:19 and God’s promise to do a new thing.
When I wrote about it at the beginning of the year, I wondered whether I had been so busy looking ahead for the new thing that I hadn’t noticed I was already standing ankle-deep in the stream.
Nine months later, I can see more of it.
My career changed. The way I work changed. I started writing and sharing my voice publicly again. I began making plans to leave a place that has been home for years and start over somewhere new.
Some things have been restored.
Some things are still uncertain.
Some things I’m still learning to release.
And there are prayers I have absolutely no idea how God will answer.
Maybe that’s why I don’t want to wait until my 50th birthday to write about Jubilee.
I want to document the road there.
Not from the other side, where everything can be wrapped into a beautiful story and every loose end conveniently given meaning.
Because life rarely works that neatly anyway.
I want to write from here.
While I’m still waiting.
While I’m still becoming.
While some prayers are being answered and others are still sitting in the space between not yet and I don’t understand.
Over the next several months, I want to explore the themes that made Jubilee what it was: freedom, release, return, rest and restoration.
And I’m adding one of my own: trust.
Because apparently God and I are still working on that one.
Not as a checklist.
And definitely not as a prediction that by 50 every broken thing in my life will suddenly be fixed.
But as questions.
What am I being freed from?
What am I being asked to release?
What parts of myself might God be calling me back to?
Can I learn to rest without believing I have to earn it first?
Can I trust God with the things I cannot control?
And what does restoration actually look like when it doesn’t look the way I expected?
I don’t know the answers yet.
That might be my favorite part.
For most of my life, I think I would have wanted to begin a story like this knowing exactly where it was going.
Actually, who am I kidding?
I would have wanted a detailed itinerary, estimated arrival time and preferably some kind of confirmation email.
At 49, I’m learning to let God keep some of the pages.
So this isn’t a testimony written from the finish line.
It’s a journal from the road.
And on July 15, 2027, when I wake up 50 years old, I want to be able to look back at these months and see more than the things that happened.
I want to see what God was teaching me while they were happening.
My fiftieth year is coming.
I don’t know what Jubilee will look like for me.
Maybe some things will change dramatically.
Maybe some won’t.
Maybe the biggest restoration won’t be around me at all.
Maybe it will be in me.
I don’t know yet.
But I’m paying attention.
This is my road to Jubilee.