By Lois Hewitt

I don’t know about you but this has been an introspective week for me.  Life certainly gets real as you get older. You lose family and friends.  The future is a bit different. As a youth, the future is infinite but age brings a finality to it.  The body aches more often.  Leaks of all manner become commonplace. Energy needs more criteria in order to be efficient because it’s no longer endless.  Oh, and the regrets for things done and those not done. 

If you look at just those things it seems like it could be scary especially when the world we knew is so much different now.  But there is an upside. In my older years, I have gained much, and not just weight. I have gained a wisdom that is serving me well in uncertain times.  I have gained more understanding of how to be healthy which was completely disregarded in my youth. 

I love better now. I do better now.  I don’t care if I fit in or am cool.   I now have peace. Youth is fight or flight, it’s adrenaline and angst.  Those things now unimportant.  Sure I look in the mirror and see a face I do not recognize at times, but it’s a kinder face with more compassion and caring. 

Youth was about me, me and me.  Now not as much. God was an afterthought in my youth. Now He is my mainstay, my rock and my savior.  That in and of itself has been the turning point in my life. Eyes off of me and onto Him.  I know the fears of getting older.  Not having enough to live on, not having health insurance and knowing how easily your health can just go.  But knowing I have a God who is bigger than all  that is bringing me peace as I face my older years.

In my youth, I relied in my own strength and that didn’t work out as well as you’d think it would.  Now I know my limitations and I’m grateful for every provision and every day.  I miss my family and friends, miss the carefreeness of youth but the place I’m in is better, and my vision is more on the eternal.  I know getting older is full of pitfalls and uncertainties but if your eyes are looking upward, the view is pretty darn good.  Stay strong. Believe in the promises of God, I do.  It is life changing my friend.