This is a repost but it still applies. Next week back to following Jesus' footsteps.

This week an unexpected trip to the dentist to re-glue a temporary cap made me feel a bit like a vintage car in need of some new parts. I suppose that’s common when growing older.  In restaurants, I’ve sat close to enough seniors to learn that much of their conversation is filled with ailments and meds.  Not a happy prospect, or is it?

Actually, I’m learning that getting older has many advantages.  The foolishness and impetuous nature of youth is long behind you. The disappointments of middle age where one comes to grips with the fact that he or she has NOT changed the world, is forgotten.  What’s left?  Contentment, and hopefully some wisdom:  the contentment to enjoy life for what it is, and the wisdom to separate the extraneous from the vital.

Everyone who comes to this place must decide for themselves what fits under their “vital” column.  For me, it’s God and family and friends.  So simple, isn’t it?  But then, when you strip everything away, life really is simple.

Here’s to getting older!

Until next week,

Sylvia

We were eleven this Christmas, a far cry from the twenty-five that we had been for many many years. But time changes everything, even family dynamics. Some have moved away, others have passed away. Even so, Christmas was wonderful. Chatter and laughter filled my daughter’s house. And as usual, we had so much food we could have feed the neighborhood. And there were gifts to open, and empty boxes and torn wrapping enough to fill the garbage pail in the garage.  Life is good when you have family and friends to love, and who love you.   

And that’s the thing to remember as we go into 2012. No matter how your own family dynamics have changed, life is still good because whatever else, you’ll always have that larger family of God who loves you and needs you. God never changes, though the world around us might. And your place in His family never changes. You are valuable. You are wanted. You belong. You are important not only to God but to His kingdom.

No one knows what 2012 will bring. But we can all look forward with confidence in these constants. God has a plan and purpose for each and every one of us. We can be encouraged by that.

May 2012 be all you hope for in the Lord. May you feel His constant love and presence, and may you become secure in who you are in Him. And may you fulfill the wonderful destiny He has planned for you. 

Happy New Year.

Until next time,

Sylvia