Growing Old

As I grow old, I ponder life. I now have wrinkles, and I can feel, when the weather is cold enough, that I will one day inherit my mom's arthritis. These signs are not the sad oncoming of ending life that I once thought they would be. All the world screams that to be old is not a life at all, but as I get older, get married, and look to life in the next stage, I realize that the joys are as sweet as childhood. The experiences are different. I no longer can stand on my roller skates and wonder how I will look when I am an adult, but I get to look into the face of a person that loves me like I never thought anyone could. The challenges are different, but just as hard. God is just as near. Growing old is a great time be alive; just as good as growing up. The romantification of youth is overrated, and, I am finding, one of the most wonderfully surprising false messages that we receive.
One of the new challenges that I must face is the tendency of people my age to lock into a set of beliefs. We grow up and as a part of that process experience things and draw conclusions from those experiences. Some of those experiences are good and so we may start to believe good and right things; such as the existence of a good God. However, these believes as locked beliefs are just as dangerous as the opposite beliefs if they are also locked. I had a moment this morning, sitting in my kitchen, where I realized that I could decide to believe something that was not true and live a fine life always believing this. At that moment God came to me and reminded me that he is my Lord. God is Lord of someone when they realize that who they are is not defined by a set of believes that tells something about their experiences, but rather when they recognize that they are someone only in relation to a surprising, dynamic God that we just can't seem to pin down. The comfort of understanding yourself with a set of locked beliefs is great. God, however, calls us to truth. I want to be who I am to God. Since God is not a relation that you can nail down, I am excited about the next phase of our relationship, where I will get to experience him in time and space, and grow to know and love him more as he continues to show me who I am. Thank God for life, and for the gift of growing old.