I’m pretty sure that the place where I have seen the word “renew” the most is on the package of some kind of anti-aging facial moisturizer that always has a girl like my 16-year-old cousin, who is a model, on the advertisement. While I can say in a completely unbiased way that my little cousin (she’s 6 feet tall) is totally gorgeous, inside and out, I also know that despite the promise of “renewal” on the box I’ll never have that dewy skin again. Bummer!

But that can’t be all that renewal is, or we’d lose all hope after the age of 27! And let’s not do that, because as our older sisters in the faith can show us, life can be so, so sweet in the second (and third, and fourth) act.

My Webster’s Dictionary app defines renewal as “An expenditure that betters existing fixed assets.” I think that’s particularly awesome. First, you figure out your existing assets. What do you have? Who are you, and what are your gifts? Then, something is expended to better those assets. This does not always mean money, although we are usually pushed in that direction. I think it means any effort towards something that improves what we already have.

Yeah, this could be a moisturizer, bettering whatever skin genetics has bestowed on us. But it could also be an investment of time in a spiritual retreat. One of my best friends is taking time intentionally to travel the world in the next few years. She is not independently wealthy; she is a working single mom with all the complications that the rest of us face. But she wants to invest in bettering her assets, in expanding her mind and feeding her spirit by being in other cultures regularly! This is renewal, because I bet that when she returns, nothing will be the same. (Continued on next page.)