Life is good when you’re young. You have people looking out for you. Your world is fresh and new. Everything is fascinating, so much to learn and do.
Your body is strong and healthy, full of energy and ready to take you on whatever journey you choose.
Your mind is sharp and inquisitive, soaking up information like a damp sponge, ready to explore everything, everywhere.
It’s a sweet world you live and play in.
Then middle age sets in. Creaky joints. Expanding middle. Short term memory starts to make itself known as bits of information slide off into the black hole that is middle aged memory. Work, work, work. Feels like all you ever do is work. Fatigue begins to set in just a bit. Your children, teenagers now, are driving you crazy. You wonder where these aliens came from and how they landed in your house.
It’s a challenging but still comforting world you live and work in.
The Golden Years are anything but golden. Everything hurts. Can’t remember crap. Money is tight. Going back to work is not an option. The world moves faster and grows more corrupt every day. You don’t stand a prayer of keeping up, and in most things, you don’t even want to.
You’re on a first name basis with your pharmacist and related personnel. Your physician now knows you more intimately than your spouse does.
You start to see a different side of people, perhaps truly seeing them for the first time. Some are extra nice to you, performing small kindnesses where they see a need, hustling to open heavy doors ahead of you, calling you “dear” and “honey,” and inquiring as to how you’re doing today. You lie and say you’re great, even though you’re hurting physically and mentally depressed over the loss of a loved one. Keep smiling. Keep going. To stop is to sink into a void where inaction becomes a habit.
Other people are not so nice. Some of them target you with a variety of scams because they equate old age with stupidity and gullibility. Still others make you feel invisible as they let a door slam in your face instead of politely holding it open like you always did and still do, for the next person coming in.
You find that your handicapped placard doesn’t always get you a needed parking space in inclement weather because an able-bodied person didn’t want to get wet while running to the door of a building.
You often find yourself in danger of suffering a bladder leak while you wait for kids to exit the handicapped stall in the rest room. It’s not that you want to use that particular stall; you need to use it for the higher seat and the grab bars. They won’t look you in the eye when they come out. They know they were wrong to tie up the stall you needed so desperately, but they don’t seem to care.
Not everybody is nice.
It’s a lonely world you live in now.
Loved ones die. Friends die. If you live long enough, your children die, maybe even some grandchildren if you’re exceptionally aged. Pets die, and even though your arms feel so empty without your furry companion, you’re reluctant to get a new one because you don’t want to leave it behind when you die. You love that much and that deeply.
Eventually, your days, as with all of us, draw to a close.
For some of us, this is where the story gets good. As a Christian, I embrace death as my release from this prison because I’m going Home. I don’t look forward to the dying, mind you, as that is often traumatic and extended, and I’m not one who enjoys pain. But death, the passing from this death-shrouded world to my new home where once again I’ll be in the presence of a loving Father, an even better one than the one I was given here on earth – that wipes all the tarnish off the Golden Years and gives fresh excitement to my senior years. I’m that much closer to going Home!
So, how did you live your life? Did you embrace God’s love, or did you reject the Son’s message of salvation as “bunk?” Did you invite the Holy Spirit into your life and obey His leading? As long as you have breath in your body, it’s never too late to accept Jesus as your savior.
But accepting Jesus sooner rather than later will give you a better life. It doesn’t “fix” everything. It gives new meaning and satisfaction to life as your faith is evidenced by your good works. It makes the loss of loved ones bearable because you know you’ll see them again, alive and better than ever. And it comforts you during that last part of your life on this darkening planet.
Are you going home with me?
Karen Saul 