If you didn’t already read the ten things I learned from cancer, click here.  As I was grocery shopping today I thought of one more thing that should have made the list.

1. more. thing. BRAG ABOUT YOUR AGE!!

I recently had a conversation with a beautiful friend that I assumed was around my age.  After ten minutes of prodding she finally whispered a number to me that I immediately screamed out with bugged eyes and hands in the air.  She is twelve years older than me.  Seriously?  You’re beautiful.  You appear to be at least a decade younger than your actual age.  And you whisper the number after ten minutes of persistent prodding?  Come on!  Stand up in restaurants and scream it out.  Put it in your signature block on your email.  Attach your age to your name when introducing yourself (“Hi, I’m Kate and I’m 52 years old.  Can you believe it?  I look great for my age. Don’t I?”).    Be proud that God gave you every single one of those minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years to do something great.

Psalm 139:16 You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.

There is no guarantee that I will ever reach the age of my friend.  Only God knows how many days he has planned for me.  What I do know is that three days before my three-year cancer-free day… I celebrated my FORTY-FIRST birthday.  Yep.  That’s right.  I’m bragging about being forty-one years old.  You know why?  Because it’s a gift.  I just hope that on the very last day I have to brag about my age, I can say that I filled the majority of the days given to me with purpose.