Six Decades and Counting

As a seven year old, one of my greatest ambitions was to own a pocket knife. My mom told me that I would have to wait until I was 10 to have that responsibility. I very clearly remember how I anguished over having to wait so long.

Today, I am sixty.

I tend to think in decades: I started work at HP in my twenties,, I was in my thirties when I first believed in Jesus, I was in my fifties when I finally found a psychiatrist who could help me.

What will I think of my sixties if I live to be 70 or 80?

- More and more I realize how important God, friends, and family are. All else seems to pale.

- I am at the start of a new career working as a peer specialist with folks who have struggled with mental health issues.

- I am finally beginning to understand what it means to "eat healthy".

- I rejoice in having a new knee that works so much better than my natural one did during my fifties.

- I love being a grandpa.

- I marvel at how my children are blossoming.

- Barbara and I love each other more and more. There seems to be no limit to how our love can grow.

Of course, this is also a season of loss. Skin continues to lose it's elasticity. Testosterone appears to be on the wane. It seems a bit harder to hear, and it takes just the right corrective lenses to see things right in front of my face. My thirst for adventure is greatly diminished. Comfort beckons seductively.

I have finally learned enough to understand how small my store of knowledge is and how vast is the potential to learn more.

As much as I love knowledge, I have come to prize wisdom even more.

I am delightfully near the end of my life on earth. As always, the day of my death may be today, or it may be decades in the future. However, the end is more plainly in view than ever before.

I am here as planned by God. But this is not my home.