Through the years I have met numerous people affected by a variety of challenges. Some challenges were physical, some were intellectual and some were emotional. Sometimes the people were frustrated and sometimes they used their challenges to make a great difference in the world. The challenge that has been on my mind in the last several years is one that most of us will face and that is the challenge that aging proposes.
I don't know which is harder to look at an elderly person and imagine them young or to look at a young person and imagine them old. It is hard to believe that both ends of the spectrum will exist in a person's lifetime.
I have an app on my phone that can age a portrait by 30 years. It is rather frightening, yet inevitable. We will either have a short life or we will age. Even though we seem to be doing everything we can think of to ward off the aging process, it will still happen.
I met my mother-in-law 30 years ago. I was 22 and she was 50 (about my age now). When I met her she had a lot of heartache, a lot of joy, and a lot of wisdom. Wrinkles were starting to emerge and they all had a story to tell. I remember asking her advice on marriage and parenting and until she could no longer laugh, we were laughing and trying not to take those very things too seriously but enjoy them. I remember her saying, "I could handle any stage my children went through as long as they didn't get stuck in one."
Over the last ten years I have watched my mother-in-law go back in time resembling a teenager, a youth and now a child. The process has been hard for her and for us. We have had to say numerous goodbyes along the way. The beauty of aging, however, is knowing you have weathered the storms and have left some flavor of a legacy as you rode them out.
I am now the age she was and I have to ask myself, What am I going to do with the next 30 years? Who knows, I may not even have them but if I do, I need to live them well. Any challenge we face in life has the ability to disable us or empower us. If we have a plan, however, we can have a little more control over what that will look like.
For me, I have decided that over the next 30 years...
- I will never retire. I will only change what I am doing periodically.
- I will always invest in someone younger than myself and listen to someone older and wiser than myself.
- I will try to complete my "bucket list."
- I will laugh until my sides hurt along the way.
- I will leave things as simple as possible for my children.
- I will leave my heart on paper for my grandchildren.
- I will complete the assignments God has given me and wait enthusiastically for more.
- I will learn as much about God as I can before I meet Him.
- I will extend grace as it has so generously been extended to me.
- and most of all, I will try to keep twinkles in my wrinkles!
