Sept 8th, 2021: Seasons of Life
A friend from California told me recently that she would like to go to the East to see the Fall colors. A few years ago, my wife and I took a trip to the Maritimes of Canada to do just that. We were marveled at the beauty of the Fall Foliage in that region of our country. Somehow we cannot do the same with the change of seasons in our life. We prefer to stay young forever and would do anything to achieve that. Yet, we won't be able to stop the inevitability of aging. Seasons of our life do happen.
Getting old is uncomfortable for many of us. Some might feel that we lose our attractiveness. Some are afraid of losing our mind. Some are terrified by the prospect of being forgotten. Some begin to ask about the meaning of death only to discover that we have not yet fully understood the purpose of life.
Getting old somehow gives us the feeling of being cheated. We want life to go on forever, and we have gone about life as if that is true. We know that we cannot take anything with us when we die. Yet, we accumulate more stuff than we need knowing very well that we will die. We fight against the notion of death because we deceive ourselves that it cannot be.
Getting old can give us new perspectives of life and death at the same time. We begin to think about what is eternal. We redefine our places in the world with the hope that we can be the catalysts of change and the foundation of stability. We can only do that well when we can acknowledge our human fallacy. We cannot change anyone until we allow God to change our hearts.
Let us face aging with the mercy of God so we can live our lives without the limitations of death. The change of seasons in our lives will reveal the depth and richness of God's compassion in our inner beings and His kindness to the world around us.
James 4:13-15
Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”
