I’ve been thinking lately about getting older. You have heard the phrase – “you are only as old as you feel”.
Not true.
When I got two Minion DVD’s for Christmas from grandsons, which by the way are really funny, I feel like one of the kids. Yet – I am still 63.
The reality is that I have been 63 for a week now and I ain’t no spring chicken.
- I am the oldest (in age) faculty member at Smoky Mountain High School.
- We opened presents starting with the oldest first – which was ME.
- I got a senior discount when we went to see the Hobbit on Saturday night.
- I fall asleep when I sit down and start to read in the evenings…and afternoon.
- I was the last one up the hill on our family hike, but I enjoyed every minute.
The flip side of this aging coin is that I was also one of the younger individuals around when we visited my parents at their retirement community the week before Christmas. My father is 90 and my mother is 86, so 63 was inconsequential. It is a blessing to see these neighbors of my parents and hear about the activities they are involved in. My father has taught 7 people how to turn wooden bowls this year and both parents traveled to Brazil in September to promote an English language system with which my mother volunteers.
This thinking about age has led me to ask the question – “What next, Lord?”
It seems as though the previous stages of my life where relatively clearly laid out.
- I went to school 13 years and graduated from high school.
- I went to college and got a degree and teaching certification.
- I got a job teaching.
- I got married.
- I had children.
- I was able to stay home with our young children.
- The children grew and I went to work part-time.
- Our children became college age and I went to work full-time.
- My active mothering role has ended – the children obtained jobs, some got married, some have their own children.
What next, Lord?
The above list leaves out the essential dynamic of the purpose of all those things I have done in my 63 years… I desire to live my life to bring glory to God.
In thinking about a New Year’s resolution, I realized that I did not need to think of something do to challenge myself to “improve”, “overcome something”, or “transform” my life.
I need to be faithful in the things that God has already given me to do.
Titus 2: 3-5 –
“3 Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4 Then they can urge the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5 to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.”
Those of us who are older women have a clear mandate. I am so thankful for the faithful, godly women that have taught me over the years including my grandmothers, my mother, Sally Fesperman, Sue Makinson, Elizabeth Elliot and others.
May we all be faithful to be an example to the younger women God brings into our lives in 2015. God Bless you!
Our Father's Daughters 