Halfway home

There’s a prayer I prayed as a child. I said it over and over. Repeating it to myself comforted me during the hardest parts of early life. “

God make the second half of my life better than the first. God make the second half of my life better than the first.”

I consider myself to be a lucky person. I’m lucky because of things I got away with, because of things I’ve survived, not lucky because of choices I consciously made. I’m lucky because I was taught early on to listen to the little voice inside of me that would guide my path.

God made sure I got that lesson from my grandmother. Some never do. I just got lucky.

I consider myself to be a blessed person – blessed with a wife who suits me like the sun suits the sky, who makes up for my faults, who strengthens my strengths, and blessed with a son I couldn’t be prouder of, blessed to watch God take the best parts of him that are me and make them better.

I’m blessed to know my purpose. I’m blessed to feel at one with the universe when I sit at this keyboard or behind a guitar, blessed to be able to sing to people, to look them in the eye and feel what they feel. I get to be fully human in front of others. Many will never know the freedom and self-acceptance to be learned from that.

I’ve lived the past six or seven years of my life as if that better half had begun.

I had reasons to believe that. I found sobriety and stability. I renewed my commitment to music and released an album. My wife and I reached a new level of love and happiness in our marriage.

It’s hard to imagine things getting better, but I believe they will.

We have a rally cry in our family. It’s a call to appreciate gratitude for the moment we’re sharing. I say, “Who has it better than us?” My wife and son say, “Nobody.”

It’s not something said to be cute. It’s something we say because we believe it.

It hit me the other day that, with current life expectancy, I only just now hit the halfway point of life. If I get it for as long as they say I’ll get it, I passed the midway marker sometime in April.

That realization gave me more hope than I have felt in a very long time.

I’m heading into the second half knowing God has amazing things ahead of me. Knowing I’m lucky. Knowing I’m blessed. Knowing God makes good things better.

I’m headed into the second half knowing God has a great story to tell through me.

I can’t wait to see what happens next.

Stults is a performing songwriter from Russellville.