Today is my last day of being 76.  Thus you will notice a variety of posts on restoration, rebranding, renovation, rebuilding and many more redos.  When you’ve lived this long, you feel it’s time for a make-over.  The thousand mile checkups and replacement parts are getting more and more intense as time marches on.  So this week I’m talking about the aging process and all the humor involved in becoming old.  Actually it’s nothing to laugh about.

The image above kind of describes my life right now.  Everything is in need of repair.  We do have an indoor bathroom, but it’s time for an extra large toilet seat.  Also, as indicated in the cartoon, everything is now in a state of sag.  Things that used to be in certain places are now much lower and indefinable.  You lose inches from your height and add them to your girth.  Your face resembles a road map with lines and squiggles all over the place.  Your memory returns to your youth, but you can’t remember why you went from one room to another.  The once soft and pliable skin resembles an old leather shoe yet it’s fragile enough to bleed or bruise instantly.

When our homes start to show wear, we refurbish them with paint and add something new to dress them up.  When we get old, everything we try to do to improve our health, our looks, our outlook, our daily living seems to be just a cover up for what’s really going on within.

We could stay within our dwellings and ponder our demise – we could feel sorry for ourselves – we could feel lost, deserted, lonely and useless.  We could do those things or we could lift ourselves up by the bootstraps and live with it.  Or we could rejoice that we’ve been given all these years to share God’s love with others.

When Job suffered the loss of all his material wealth, the lives of his children and became diseased ad ready to die, the advice of his friends wasn’t of much help to him.  The only comfort came from the actual voice of God, who demonstrated His power through His words.  As I grow older, I will never completely understand that power – that majesty – that wisdom, but I have been endowed with His voice, which comes through His own words written in the Bible.

As another year goes by, I’ve attended a lot of funerals, but not all of them were old folks.  I’ve seen a change in the way people accomplish things, how they communicate, how they solve problems and how they live.  I’ve witnessed a turning away from God in our society and more focus on self.  Maybe it’s because of my age that these things bother me, but I truly believe that we need to turn back to our Creator for wisdom and knowledge.

I do have the assurance that my life here on earth has value no matter how long I live. I know that He has mapped it all out for me.  I also know that when I die, life will go on.  At that point, all the wrinkles will disappear – the aching muscles will grow stronger – the tears will stop and it won’t matter what I look like.  I’m  going to be a child of God eternally.