Another friend then inquired about how I was doing. “Pretty good,” I told him, “for an old woman.” Then, for a few seconds, Eugene and I compared aches and pains and ailments that go along with getting old.
After I left church that day, I started thinking ... about getting old ... about all the things elderly people have to deal with ... about some of the fears and worries they have ... about life ... and death ... and what faith in God fits in all of these things.
I thought about Claude, Eugene and me using the expression, “pretty good.” Then I thought, “Well, if older people are closer to the century mark in age than they are to the day they were born, and they still feel ‘pretty good,’ then that’s not so bad, is it?”
You hear a lot about the “Golden Years.” I’m not sure I’ve ever really understood what that expression means, but here are a few examples related to things “golden.”
People who have been married to each other for 50 years celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. You can buy CD or tape collections of songs that were popular many years ago and they’re called the “Golden Oldies.”
Sometimes we talk about folks being “worth their weight in gold.” There’s a new version of the Newlyweds on GSN and they feature a couple each week from the old Newlywed show that they call the “Goldyweds.”
We talk about really special times in our lives as being “golden moments.” People call a particular period of prosperity and achievement in the life of a nation or an individual a “golden age.”
In his Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said we are to treat others like we want to be treated. This is known to us today as the “Golden Rule.”
And Webster’s dictionary says that people who are active well into the advanced years of their lifetime are living their “Golden Years.”
Well, let me see if I understand that. It seems to me, according to the information I’ve gathered for today, that you’re in your golden years if you’ve had a golden wedding anniversary; if you listen to old songs; if you’re worth your weight in gold; if you can still remember as far back as the goldyweds; if we have our golden moments; if we’ve achieved a little something worthwhile and, especially, if we make an effort to be good to the people we know and meet ... particularly the old ones like me.
While the above measurements of our golden years are good, I really think I’ve come up with a more accurate yardstick to measure whether or not I’m living the good life of the golden years.
For example, if “my eyes are bigger than my belly,” I’m experiencing my golden years. I’m always putting more on my plate than I can eat at one sitting.
First it was bifocals; then it was trifocals; now I’m down to carrying a magnifying glass in my pocket so I can read the labels in the store, or not put my name on anything I don’t know what I’m signing.
I spend more time looking for something I’ve misplaced than I do sleeping.
There are a lot of pauses in my conversations with others because I lose my train of thought.
I’ve lost enough things in the past five years to furnish a kitchen and lose hours just standing in the middle of the room trying to figure out why I went in there in the first place.
There are a lot of puzzling looks on my face because I don’t want to admit I can’t hear so good any more.
My walk is a lot slower. Actually, my movement these days is more of a shuffle than a walk.
I hurt all the time ... all over ... don’t sleep too well ... and my get-up-and-go got up and left a long time ago.
Seriously, folks, I hope you know that while it’s true these things are really happening to me, I am so blessed by my Heavenly Father.
And the truth of the whole matter is my golden years began when I accepted Christ as my Savior 60 years ago.
One day, all the aches and pains and heartaches will be gone and with heaven my home and my Savior in its midst with my loved ones, I’ll truly be living the golden life.
God bless.
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