Am I old?

Am I old?

I don’t feel old, not really. But have I grown old?

As I write this, I’m in my late 50’s. That fact alone may answer the question, for some. I have more health issues than I used to, that’s true. I find I look at some things in terms of the value of what I receive versus the energy I have to expend to receive it. Some may tell me that this answers my question as well.

But here’s the thing: I don’t feel ‘old’. I feel as though I’ve experienced a fair bit of life, and that’s a different feeling. I feel like I’ve learned a few things, about living life, about what’s important and what’s not, about how to let go of things that earlier in my life I refused to. And that’s what makes me ask the question. Am I old, or have I just begun to understand the long view of life?

If I’m honest -and I am, or try to be, always- I have to admit that there are times when my energy for a given day becomes exhausted, and that didn’t used to happen. Maybe once a month, I’ll find myself dozing off for thirty minutes or an hour in the evening, and that didn’t used to happen, either. So it seems clear that the boundless energy reserves of my youth are ebbing, and that’s probably a sign of the lengthening stream of years which have passed beneath the bridge. I can’t deny that truth. Does that make me old?

I understand now that hate and envy are blinders, which keep me focused on the wrong parts of life. I understand that rage burns me, not the other person. I understand that for all my filth and sin, Almighty God still wants me in His heaven. That makes me feel young, and valued, and loved. I understand that things are going to get worse, because God says in His Word that they will. So I don’t worry as much about the way my American society seems to be crumbling around me. I carried that burden throughout much of my life; I don’t feel it nearly as much anymore. My understanding of the things around me, of the way in which life unfolds, has grown, and continues to grow.

So perhaps the answer depends on how I choose to define “old”. By many standards of my little world, by the larger society around me…I am, in fact, old. Shall I choose to let that define me? To some extent, that’s not up to me. I am at the mercy of those with power, with authority over me. But to the extent I have the ability to define myself, I think I will continue to choose to see most of my life as not old. I say ‘most of my life’, because I don’t mind not helping friends move to a new home anymore, or not changing my own oil, or not being expected to run anywhere. I’m not opposed to taking occasional advantage of some of the benefits of having seen as much of life as I have. I miss hiking, which I did a little of during the misspent days of my youth, and just wandering in the woods. (A friend of mine is a stringer, a person who takes photographs, typically of local high school sporting events, or car accidents, or fires, and sells them to newspapers or websites. He laughingly commented, “Years ago I’d steal a glance or take a quick photo of the cheerleaders. Then nobody thought anything of it, but now I’m ‘Creepy Old Guy’!”) It’s interesting, and sometimes depressing, how merely the passage of years has affected how I’m perceived. I’m still the same guy, more or less. But the way others view me is different than in the days when I was twenty-five.

I choose to view myself as experienced. Older in years, yes, but perhaps a better consumer of the years that are to come. Hopefully a little wiser, as a result of the days I’ve already lived. A little slower on the video game trigger, but smarter about how to battle the bosses. A better person because of what my Lord has taught me, and maybe less concerned about the things that happen along the way, because I know He is control. I know where my final destination is, and I know I’ll be welcomed with loving arms when I get there. And that’s something to look forward to.

Bad Things and Good People

Why does God allow bad things to happen to good people?

How can a loving God allow such hideous things to occur as the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut?  If He really is good….

…If He really is good, then those twenty children would still be alive.  Those six adults would never have been faced with that terrible decision, the choice of giving up their own lives to possibly -maybe- save the lives of the little children in their care.  That’s what we want to think.  Because that’s the easy answer, the simple answer.  If He really is good, He would have stopped this terrible, heart-shredding THING from happening.

But life isn’t that simple.  It doesn’t always work like that.  Faith, real faith, is about more than just church services and living a “good life”.

The answer to that question -Why?- is Susan Goodman.

You don’t know Suzy Goodman.  Except you do.  She was born in 1943 in Peoria, Illinois.  She lived a normal life.  She was a beautiful girl, a high school homecoming queen, who grew into a beautiful woman.  After graduating from college, she married her college sweetheart, and she and Stan were happy.  She found that she was pretty enough to find work as a model.  Life was good.

Then, on a Tuesday in 1976, like thousands of other women before and since, she found a lump in her breast.  She was diagnosed with breast cancer.  She was 33.  Old enough to have tasted life, to have gotten a handle on it, learned how to enjoy life, to enjoy the fruits that life has to offer.  Old enough to have found someone to spend her life with, and to have begun spending that together life.  Old enough to have begun many things.

She didn’t die immediately.  She fought.  The cancer was beaten back, more than once.  She carried on her fight for several more years.  But in the end, despite having won many battles, she lost the war, and in 1980, her life was taken from her.

She left behind many who loved her very much.  Her husband, her parents, and most importantly, her younger sister Nancy.  While Suzy was alive, Nancy promised her sister that she would do everything she could to end breast cancer, and Nancy was as good as her word.  I said you know Suzy Goodman, because her husband Stan’s last name is Komen.  And now you know that the “G” in Susan G. Komen…..stands for Goodman.

Nancy Goodman Brinker followed through on that promise, and in 1982 she created the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation.  Since it’s beginning, the organization now known as Susan G. Komen for the Cure has raised hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars, much of which has gone towards research to someday eradicate breast cancer.  They have done untold good, have saved thousands of lives through breast cancer education, teaching women to be on the lookout for the early signs of breast cancer so that it can be caught and stopped.  And some day, Nancy and her organization may just find that Cure they have worked so long and so hard for.

But none of this good would have ever happened……if Almighty God had not allowed Susan Komen to die from breast cancer.  So that her sister could harness her terrible personal pain to do great works, for the benefit of God’s daughters.

Sometimes, faith means the willingness to give our lives to God so that His plan can be brought to fruition…..through our suffering.  Or our death.

So what possible good can grow out of the deaths of these innocent children?  I don’t know.  Faith means believing that the same God who allowed this…..thing…to happen loves us, and has a plan for us that will eventually result in these tiny lives being lifted up.  Loved all of his children so much that He to allowed these little ones’ lives to be taken away so that a greater good might be born from their deaths, and from our grief, and rage, and pain.

So rage.  And cry, and mourn, and pour out your pain to Him.  Trust that His heart is also broken over this outrage.  And have faith in Him, and His ultimate, undying love, for these children, and their teachers, and for each of us.

There is a plan.