Your Golden Years (3)

‘Even to your old age…will I carry you...’ Isaiah 46:4 KJV

Growing old graciously should be one of your life’s goals. You don’t need to fear ageing, or try to gloss over your uneasiness about approaching it or attempt to cover up your anxiety. The story is told of a lady buying a new hat. When she tried one on, her friend said, ‘My, that hat makes you look ten years younger.’ Quickly she put it back on the shelf and said, ‘I don’t want that one. I’d hate to look ten years older every time I took it off!’ ‘Mother Nature’ and ‘Father Time’ may have brought you backaches, baldness and bifocals, but you don’t have to act old. And you don’t have to think old. Instead of trying to add years to your life, try adding life to your years. Instead of resenting the fact you are getting old, think how much you would resent being denied the privilege. When asked how he felt about turning eighty, President Dwight D. Eisenhower replied, ‘It sure does beat the alternative!’ If you are still alive, God kept you around for a reason. Find out what it is, then pour every day and every ounce of energy you’ve left into it. You can be ‘old’ at twenty–five and ‘young’ at eighty–five. You are only old when you feel old; or feel like you know all there is to know; or find yourself saying, ‘I’m too old to do that,’ or think that tomorrow holds no promise, or take no interest in the activities of youth, or would rather talk than listen, or long for the ‘good old days’, feeling they were the best.