For at least two years now, I’ve said to people that I am such and such an age next birthday in preference to mentioning my actual age.
My whole outlook about age has been transformed over the last few years.
I now see the older I get the more blessed my life is. It’s a reverse of the typical trend but I also see more people my age embracing it.
I see so many who have died before the age I’ve arrived at, today. Many many good people. And I look at my own life and simply celebrate that I’m alive still.
As I approach my 60th birthday in a few years, I feel I’m entering a phase of transitioning into retirement. But for me that transition will take a course of 15-20 years. Indeed, I really do sense that I may never retire, given that my work these days is simply about talking to people, listening to them, helping people through relationship challenges and opportunities, whether it’s involved in assisting people on their mental health journey, with their trauma, or with their relationships with family, or pastoring: it’s all relational work that I find that I want to do for the rest of my life. As long as I’ve got the mental and physical capacity to do what I do. (I don’t feel I will ever burn out from this work. My boundaries are too intrinsic now. I would rather fail the workload, and yes even fail people, than collapse. Finally, wisdom for the long game.)
I look at my age now and I feel so blessed to have entered a time in my 50s where I’m enormously reflective, quite nostalgic, and indeed very thankful, for the wonderful experiences I have been blessed to receive.
Not all of these life experiences were great at the time, indeed many of them have been extremely painful. But I see God’s faithfulness to carry me through these arduous seasons. And I look back with fondness at the life and family I’ve been given. For the country that I have been born into, and the incredible opportunities I’ve had to experience life, and to be paid to do what I do.
I sense I have nothing left to ‘achieve’. I feel free from the pressure of achievement, acquisition, and other people’s acceptance. The ideals of the triple temptation—achievement, acquisition, and acceptance—hold much less allure. If I want to ‘achieve’ now, it’s because I know the task is the right one to do—it’s not a quest to make things better for me.
So my outlook on life, as far as age is concerned, is that the older I get the better life becomes. Of course, I have an eternal hope. I know the best is definitely yet to come, beyond this life. But while I’m here and while I have my health, I aim to make the most of every single day, and by the way I will be the next number in just a few months. And then I will call myself a person who is nearly such and such an age (the next number) and not my present age.
What a privilege it is to become a grandparent. Proverbs 17:6 says, “Children’s children are a crown to the aged,” and it also says, “parents are the pride of their children.”
It’s a good thing to grow older.
The older I get the more thankful I am.
And the older I get, the more prepared I am to die.
And as one final thought, I think of two occasions where I could have been killed before I was seven years of age. I’m so thankful that both those near hits were misses. Overall there have been several times in my life when I could have died. Many, many have been far less fortunate. I’m grateful that I’m here, at this age and time.
