Growing Older

You never really realize you are growing older.  It just seems to be that one day you are just older.  There is that odd glance in the mirror that takes you completely by surprise, when you notice that “I look like my mother!” or in my case “I look like my grandma!”  And then you take a second look and are somewhat consoled, because in the mirror you once again see the face you recognize as you.  But that thought of you looking like an ancestor sticks in your craw, and that face that you did not initially recognize keeps appearing before you more frequently. 

In the very inner recesses of my being, my spirit and love for life is not more than 25 years old and usually is not more than 19 years old.   At times it is hard for me to wrap my head around the fact that I am 52 years old, that my children are 23 and 20 and that I have been married for 26 years.   The years have flown by so quickly I feel like I am left in the dust saying “wait!” But the time for asking time to wait is over.  The time for doing and being who you are meant to be is NOW. So world here I am!  I have a lot of faults and warts, but as Popeye says, "I yam what I yam!"  (I suppose that’s why my favorite hymn is “Just As I Am.”)  Even if no one has a kind word to say about me, I hope they can at least say she never tried to be something she is not.

It has become popular for middle aged people to talk about putting together a "bucket list."  I don’t have a bucket list, but there are times I am tempted to put one together.  I would do so except for the mere fact that everybody is putting together a list and I really hate being like everybody else.   But despite that, I have a long list of things I would like to do before I die (I know this sounds silly, but I really want a pair of cowboy boots! Does that count?) but if I never get to check off one thing from my list I will still die happy because of the people that have been in my life that have touched my soul (sometimes without even knowing).  

I suppose my “bucket list,” if I were to have one, would be whether I made a difference in one person’s life. I realize how corny that sounds, but Richter and I have always made sure that the door of our home has always been open to anyone who needed refuge, whether it was someone in need of love, a meal, a bed, a friend…..whatever the need.  God has always seemed to place people at our door and in our lives at the right time for everybody concerned, and I hope we have always welcomed them with open arms.  There were times when people would be standing at our door in need or in some kind of crisis and we would look at each other and say, in essence WTF!  But Richter would always say, I guess that’s why we live where we do.  God needed us to be there for them.  And my friend, that is the reason for life -- Purpose!  Life is about purpose!  The funny thing is that after each encounter, I always felt I walked away being many more times blessed than the person I was trying to be a blessing to.

I guess the reason I have even been thinking on the subject of growing older, the purpose of life, the meaning of life, etc., is because Richter and I have lost two friends in as many weeks, and it really does get one to contemplating life….and death.  While I don’t mean to sound maudlin, I have come to fully accept that death IS a part of life.  I am finally at ease with that concept.  I believe that I have loved as hard and as fully as I can love and I have no regrets.  Everything I have done or has happened in my life, whether for good or for bad, are the events or circumstances that have made me who I am.  I am not perfect, and I am not sin free, but I believe in Jesus Christ as my savior and I know that through Him all things happen for good.  I just hope that one day I can hear “Well done my good and faithful servant.” 

Love, Momma Richter