I heard the rain last night. I turned over in bed. “No bicycling tomorrow; instead calisthenics; yuk”, I thought as I went back to sleep. A text from a life-long friend greeted me in the morning. My reply was to say I needed time to let it sink in; there was much about aging.
My first thought was to recall my Heavenly Father’s knowledge from Scripture: Psalm 90 verse 10: “The years of our life are seventy, or even by reason of strength eighty; yet their span is but toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.”
Sometimes I have let the tempter’s lies persuade me otherwise influencing not only my thoughts but actions as well, but in the long run I have lived my life believing His Truth. At my and my friend’s ages we may agree this is one “Truth” we wish would not be so true.
In the cool of the moist morning while eating breakfast on my porch where I could hear the birds my thought went to C.S. Lewis’ thoughts about all human life as he wrote in Weight of Glory: “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations – these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit – immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”
In this light then my greatest purpose in life is how I interact with people, immortals. Raising a family with my wife where three immortals came to be, was, and still is, on the top of that list. To my life-long friend: I pray for your age-related health issues that they would either serve a righteous purpose or that you would be healed. Amen.