A friend sent a card. “The Good News about aging…not giving a crap starts to be mistaken for quiet wisdom.” What is wisdom as you get older? I think it’s a better understanding of space and time.
As the years advance, things that occupy space are taken away from you. You don’t have a place of employment anymore. Your sense of purpose from a paying job is gone. That space called the “floor” is harder to reach and stairs are harder to climb. Your space increasingly becomes your favorite chair at home. “It is the evening of the day. I sit and watch the children play,” sang the Rolling Stones, and their take is pretty depressing. Life narrows down.
There’s a wiser perspective. If your prime thought is the presence of God, then real life is opening up as you get older. “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full (John 10:10 NIV). No expiration on that promise. So, don’t think of time as a thing that you’re running out of. People sometimes say, “At this point in time.” Every moment, wherever you are, however young or old you might be, this point in time is where you are experiencing the eternal God. The best is yet to come!
“What joy to know, when life is past, / The Lord we love is first and last, / The end and the beginning!
He will one day, oh, glorious grace, / Transport us to that happy place / Beyond all tears and sinning!
Amen! Amen! Come, Lord Jesus! Crown of gladness!
We are yearning / For the day of Your returning!
(Lutheran Service Book 395:1)
My mother sent me a card: “When you were a kid, it was pretty easy to make you feel pretty special on your birthday… These days the celebrating is different….” Life may narrow down, but every day, more and more, Jesus is opening His door to joyful paradise.