For about 15 years, I have kept Marianne Williamson's  book RETURN TO LOVE, in my nightstand, and use it as a bible. My bible. I have never been big on church or organized religion, but with her book, found comfort - and answers. When I am having  a bad day or need answers, I can usually open the book up to any page, and find something to help me.

No matter how many times I read the passages, they seem to help. But lately, I can not seem to find comfort in the section on work - and purpose in life. So I was at her site today and saw 2 pieces of news which help me!

She has a new book out -   The Age of Miracles: Embracing the New Midlife   -   which came out this past January. And she says,  "Sometimes what we appear to have lost is simply something it was time to leave behind. Perhaps our system just lets something go, your having moved through the experience and now needing it no more. "

The need for change as we get older—an emotional pressure for one phase of our lives to transition into another—is a human phenomenon, neither male nor female. There simply comes a time in our lives—not fundamentally different from the way puberty separates childhood from adulthood—when it’s time for one part of ourselves to die and for something new to be born.

The purpose of this book by best-selling author and lecturer Marianne Williamson is to psychologically and spiritually reframe this transition so that it leads to a wonderful sense of joy and awakening.

In our ability to rethink our lives lies our greatest power to change them. What we have called “middle age” need not be seen as a turning point toward death. It can be viewed as a magical turning point toward life as we’ve never known it, if we allow ourselves the power of an independent imagination—thought-forms that don’t flow in a perfunctory manner from ancient assumptions merely handed down to us, but rather flower into new archetypal images of a humanity just getting started at 45 or 50.

What we’ve learned by that time, from both our failures as well as our successes, tends to have humbled us into purity. When we were young, we had energy but we were clueless about what to do with it. Today, we have less energy, perhaps, but we have far more understanding of what each breath of life is for. And now at last, we have a destiny to fulfill—not a destiny of a life that’s simply over, but rather a destiny of a life that is finally truly lived.

Midlife is not a crisis; it’s a time of rebirth. It’s not a time to accept your death; it’s a time to accept your life—and to finally, truly live it, as you and you alone know deep in your heart it was meant to be   lived.