Well, it’s fast approaching, it’s almost here, and it’s about to happen: my hard-wired, time clock is sounding the alarm; my built-in tachometer is about ready to redline; my internal odometer is about to move to a very significant digit… I am about to turn 50.
Lot of people arrived at this milestone ahead of me, what wisdom could they offer a fellow traveler? Here are some funny ones I found and enjoyed reading:
“Looking fifty is great… if you’re sixty.” ~ Joan Rivers
“If I knew I was going to live this long, I'd have taken better care of myself.”
~ Mickey Mantle
“I'm not 50, I'm 49.95, plus tax!” ~ anonymous
It is somewhat difficult not to start believing that I should search out and find more sand for my misshapen hourglass or rollback my odometer somehow. Here I stand, on the brink of the age precipice, with no retreat, no relief, no ability of turning back. Is it all down hill from here? Or is it? Each day, it feels like I am struggling to go up hill more and more. This old body does not function as smoothly as it once did, long ago. But in truth, it is not the years; it’s the mileage …and the inadequate level of maintenance too. Over the past 30 years I have been a slacker in the area of fitness. Too much TV and evening snacks have had their way with me and I now find myself a diabetic cancer survivor, 40 lbs overweight, with a 50% blockage in my right carotid artery. The true picture of our condition and circumstances, can be quite sobering:
"Turning 50 gives me more yesterdays than tomorrows." ~ anonymous
The years between fifty and seventy are the hardest. You are always being asked to do more, and you are not yet decrepit enough to turn them down. ~ T.S. Eliot
I'm aiming by the time I'm fifty to stop being an adolescent. ~ Wendy Cope
Aging seems to be the only available way to live a long life. ~ Daniel Francois Esprit Auber
“Forty is the old age of youth; fifty is the youth of old age” ~ anonymous
I can choose how to view my life, as I survey it from this milestone. I can look back on my life and see mis-steps, missed opportunities and misfortunes of my own or I can see the countless blessings that my creator has bestowed on this worthless soul. I can be choose to look upon my life negatively our upon my loving God’s gift of blessings and grace positively. Too often I opt for the former, knowing the latter is a far better reaction to our Lords continual provision.
This weekend I will be celebrating 50 years of life with true thanksgiving to God for His grace. I have much to be thankful for. I have my beautiful wife Traci who loves me in spite of and through my flaws. Her patience and love for me have demonstrated Gods love to me time and time again. I have three beautiful children Skyler, Dylan and Kaycee who are a complete joy. Each of them joyfully and openly receiving and growing in the love and knowledge of Christ. I have a brother, Jeff and sister, Andrea and a full complement of nieces and nephews that reach out and love me even in the sporadic times we assemble and share. I have a loving mother who always has a smile and kind word to say, in spite of the piecemeal attention I extend to her. This family of mine deserves far better than I give them and yet they accept what I give anyway as a full portion and in so doing they demonstrate to me the love and grace of Christ.
I have two dear friends Kent and Michael who love me and entrust me to keep them accountable to the God they love and to the spiritual growth they wish to achieve. What an honor it is to serve them in that capacity and to have them reciprocate the favor far better than I am able to do for them. Most importantly I have a God who loves me, has a plan for me and wishes to give me the desires of my heart. Sure, I pray that my physical health will improve, but more importantly I pray that my spiritual fitness will soar to new heights and that I will always have an answer for the hope that is within me:
By the time we hit fifty, we have learned our hardest lessons. We have found out that only a few things are really important. We have learned to take life seriously, but never ourselves. ~ Marie Dressler
“Except ye become as little children, except you can wake on your fiftieth birthday with the same forward-looking excitement and interest in life that you enjoyed when you were five, "ye cannot enter the kingdom of God." One must not only die daily, but every day we must be born again.” ~ Dorothy L. Sayers
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