Please hear me, I’m by no means complaining, but a yearly check-up this week revealed that my glaucoma is progressing and a visit to the doctor due to intensifying pain in one shoulder and in one knee resulted in a diagnosis of tendinitis in both. In fact, I have a bag of ice on my knee as I’m writing this article.
As I was reflecting on the fact that my body seems to be falling apart, several things came to mind. First, on the southwest side of our parking lot, there is a beautiful silver maple in the boulevard loaded with bright green leaves. However there is one section that is turning a beautiful shade of crimson red. I feel like that tree. Lord willing, I will have so many more days ahead of me where the leaves are green and don’t wither and fall off, and yet there are days when I feel like the leaves are beginning to turn color.
A second thought in regards to my increasingly “fragile and impotent matchstick body,” I thought of the truth written in Ecclesiastes 12:1-5, “Honor and enjoy your Creator while you’re still young, before the years take their toll and your vigor wanes, before your vision dims and the world blurs and the winter years keep you close to the fire. In old age, your body no longer serves you so well. Muscles slacken, grip weakens, joints stiffen. The shades are pulled down on the world. You can’t come and go at will. Things grind to a halt. The hum of the household fades away. You are wakened now by bird-song. Hikes to the mountains are a thing of the past. Even a stroll down the road has its terrors. Your hair turns apple-blossom white, adorning a fragile and impotent matchstick body. Yes, you’re well on your way to eternal rest,
while your friends make plans for your funeral.”
Now before you think I’m ready to order my six-sided pine coffin from Amazon for $30.95 plus shipping (oh yes, check it out J), I don’t want you to think I’m getting ready to tap out. But rather, as Paul would write in 2 Corinthians 4:16-18, day by day I am growing in living my life as if Jesus were living my life.
16-18 “So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside, where God is making new life, not a day goes by without his unfolding grace. These hard times are small potatoes compared to the coming good times, the lavish celebration prepared for us. There’s far more here than meets the eye. The things we see now are here today, gone tomorrow. But the things we can’t see now will last forever.”
Regardless of what season of life you’re in—regardless of how old you feel—regardless of how well your body is functioning, may it be so of you and me that each day we live, love, and lead like Jesus.
And finally, let me also remind you to pray for the elderly of our congregation as they experience the effects of growing older; as many of them say to me, “The Golden Years aren’t so golden.”
Grace to you and peace! Mike Altena