Fifty years. Half a century of being here.
I said last year I was coming for it, looking forward to the senior vibe. Well, here it is. The number is heavier than forty-nine in ways I can't quite explain. It's not dread. It's more like standing on a hill you've been climbing your whole life and finally being high enough to see where you came from.
So let me tell you what I see from up here.
I see a long and winding trail. And I’m not here to romanticize it. I see a lot of wrong turns, mistakes, pain. I have failed more times than I care to admit and more times than most people know. Bad decisions, some as recent as this week. Wrong sacrifices, usually at the expense of the things I love the most. Misplaced confidence; academia will do that to you. Words I'd give anything to take back, too many to mention. Seasons where I was so busy building something that I forgot to be present for the people I was supposedly building it for. I have hurt people I love, and I’m sorry. I have been wrong loudly and often; back to that misplaced confidence. If the measure of a life were a scoreboard, I’d be Georgia Tech football: underdog, scrappy, an occasional shocker, and full of heartaches.
But here’s the thing at fifty, and it’s really the whole story. I stopped keeping score a long time ago. Everything good in my life has come to me as a gift, not as a wage. I didn't earn it. I couldn't have. Grace is not a concept I picked up in seminary and put on a shelf. It's the only thing that explains why I'm standing here at fifty, still loved, still upright, still invited to the table.
I see Paula. Twenty-eight years. She was a kid when she said yes and had no idea what she was signing up for. Neither did I. She's seen the worst of me up close, more than once, and she's never handed me the bill for it. Everything else I've built is scaffolding. She's the building. Give me a slow Saturday morning, two cups of coffee, her humble brag about her Wordle score, reading me something off her phone that I pretend to care about, and you can keep the rest of it.
I see my kids. They made me a father, and those first seconds of their lives remain the best seconds of mine. They are becoming their own people now. One is about to graduate college, the other is just starting, and the last one gets his license next month. Truly, drivers on their own roads, and watching that happen beyond my control or ability to protect them is both horrific and a joy I did not know to ask for. They owe me nothing. They never did. That they choose to love me anyway is another most outrageous grace in my life.
I see the work. I get to lead Reformation Brewery for a living. Let that sit for a second. A guy who spent fifteen years in vocational ministry and once kept his good beers a secret because he was way too Baptist now spends his days building spaces where strangers become neighbors. Nick and I started this on a homebrew rig with a few folks and a firepit, and it grew into something far bigger than we ever planned. Thirteen years of it now. Tanks and taprooms and payroll and permits and the occasional very long week. It is real work, and some of it is brutal, and I love it. Not every man gets to spend his energy on something he actually believes in. I do. That's no small thing.
I see the people who show up. Our crew, who carry this thing every day and make it what guests actually experience. Our investors, who wanted more than a return. Our guests, who chose us out of a hundred other places they could have gone. Our neighbors in North Georgia who let us plant something in their community and then made it their own. Old friends who knew me before. New friends who somehow like me anyway.
So, here's what I know at fifty. And it’s probably a lot simpler than I could’ve dreamed. I am a rich man in the ways that actually matter, and I'm not sure I have the words to say how aware of it I am. I’m loved by a woman who knows the whole truth about me. I’m trusted by kids who’ve lived with my best and worst days. Employed in a job I never prayed for, but a calling that found me anyway. I’m rooted in a real community that I get to give back to. I’m forgiven, permanently, by a God who was never waiting on me to become forgivable.
That's the ledger. It doesn't balance. It never will. That's what makes it grace.
Thank you for the birthday wishes, the kindness, the texts, the years. Whether you've known me for decades or you just followed along for the entertainment, I'm grateful you're in this story.
Now celebrate with me. The big party is tomorrow night at Reformation Woodstock, and we will see where it goes from there. I ain’t dead yet. Cheers!