Old Age is not for Sissies!

 Greetings to you all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

     Ecclesiastes 12:3 says, “In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because they are few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened,”

     I am reminded of this passage almost daily as I continue aging here at an assisted living facility in Christiansburg, Virginia.  Lately, I have been plagued with my vision which is giving me a slight double vision and sometimes missing a letter in the middle of a word.  I have some new glasses coming which could help a little in this newly developing problem.  I have lost a few teeth over the years, not many, but a couple. My hearing has suffered much which is both a blessing and a curse, so to speak.  It is a blessing as I don’t put my hearing aids in and therefore don’t hear all of the noise in the hallway during the night and even in the day.  Indeed, my windows are getting darker and darker with macular degeneration.  I have one crock shoe on one foot and a cam boot on the other and bandages up to the knee on the cam boot foot and just for kickers, my heart has been in afib for the past ten years.

     I have mentioned this passage before as I had to  memorize it  in high school as it was in my tenth grade literature book in the state of Indiana.  We had to memorize and recite verses one through eight.  I didn’t know what it was back in the tenth grade, but it has now become one of my favorite sections of Scripture all because it describes old age and most of all the passage says in verse seven, “Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.”Yes, This body will return to dust and five dollars worth of chemicals will lie in a coffin in the ground for a while.   The spirit, however, will return to God who gave it.  Now that is the exciting part.  The Apostle Paul reminds us that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord.  At the moment of death, this body will drop to the floor or make one final groan, and boom!  In a flash, I will be in the presence of the Lord Jesus Christ.  Now, how great is that?  I know I am going through a process that not all people get to experience, as many die younger than I am now.  My body often frustrates me such as the young little girl that was here yesterday, whose name I thought was Marley and turned out to be “Molly.”  Well, I was close.  I use a backlit keyboard and the lights on in order to type the messages with my keyboard and monitor on top of a 3.3 cubic foot refrigerator.  The aches and pains, the frustrations and yes, the embarrassments are all a part of aging but I am getting one day closer to being with the LORD and that is exciting and a blessed hope for me.  I am also more prone to tell someone about the Lord these days, as I may not have another chance.  Praise God today that you are still alive and still able to praise Him.