But I will hope continually and praise You yet more and more. My mouth will tell of Your righteous acts, of Your deeds of salvation all day long, for their number is past my knowledge. With the mighty deeds of the Lord God I will come. I will remind them of Your righteousness, Yours alone.
O God, from my youth You have taught me, and I still proclaim Your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me until I proclaim Your might to another generation, Your power to all those to come. (Verses 14-18)
Despite the sagging and wrinkling of the "getting old" experience, there is a richness of experience that can only be accomplished by living. It's a crying shame I didn't know when I was twenty what I now know about ....well, everything. At twenty, I was married. That's a scary thought now, at my current ripe old age. I knew relatively little about being a wife, except I could cook and clean. But Bill and I had to learn to relate to each other as the adults we barely were (though he was a much older twenty-four). Teaching high school, having children, moving around from state to state, crushing into each other's families, and having to be financially creative in order to live challenged us to trust our God. On top of that were the hurts inevitable in living life. Pressures from our world had increased to include all that happened to our children in their worlds. Every life has in it quite enough drama for which it needs to rely on a strength greater than can be mustered alone. Everyone must reach to something at some point, or points, in this sojourn on earth. It matters to our particular story what we grasp.
I can't remember a time when I didn't love Jesus. As a little Baptist girl growing up, I heard (and heeded, as a good Baptist) the salvation story every week at least once in the church service. I remember going forward time and time again because the ache in my heart to please Him could only be eased by confessing at the altar my need for Him. I realize now it was a call to something more. In high school I went to a retreat in Waco at a women's university there. Alone in the chapel I felt God call me to a higher commitment to Him. By the time I hit college myself, however, I had huge questions that took my mind past the walking the aisle experiences of my childhood. But God knew my rebellion wasn't a way of carte blanch sinning -- an excuse for doing all I knew was wrong to do. I really wanted to know the answers to the questions I thought maybe I was the only one asking. Ignoring my hubris, my God navigated my confused little heart toward Truth. And that has been our way, God and me. I don't understand and run. God chases me down and explains it...or salves it. Too many times to number. His reasons for loving me, past my knowledge.
I could recount all the issues of my life the past sixty years and all would know His particular greatness in my story. We have walked together through deaths, tornadoes, hurricanes, births, travels, immense loss, unfathomable personal triumphs, unspeakable joy, gut-wrenching sorrow, prodigious forgiveness and mercy, soul-destroying confusion and foot-stomping victories. In all of it, I have seen Him. Sometimes in front of me....sometimes behind. Usually frantic in the moment, though I have learned my God is faithful. In my little life. But that counts, doesn't it? To be able to live out before our children, spiritual and begotten, a life that can be traced back to the faithfulness of God? Not my own sweet victories. There are truly few of those. However, even in my squirming imperfections in the midst of chaos, God's hand in calming the storm shows even greater. Grace abounds where even my sin looked to be an impossible mountain to overcome. It's my life. My one story. Those who read it must see how, from start to finish, Jesus alone gives it meaning. No victory without His having led the charge. No sorrow borne alone. No rebellion so deep He couldn't penetrate it. No joy Jesus didn't share.
My life isn't a perfect picture of His power, but I hope He is perfecting His grace in me. Don't look to me for the rulebook -- the "Christianity for Dummies" -- though that would be an appropriate title. You can't plan for the things that knock us down or lift us up in our surprising lives. There are no rules on how to navigate a father being jailed for pedophilia. Trust is all we have through much of our journey. Parents die. Sometimes children. Jobs are won and lost. Relationships jettisoned. Money gone. The future is insecure and iffy. So the reader of my story won't find me always doing everything right. It's a messy plot line with spikes and nadirs. My God writes it. The Author and Finisher of it. If, at the end of my life, He is what the generation to follow me sees, that will be enough to warrant my lines and graying hair (I only assume it's gray...haven't seen the real color in years). I will not have succeeded on any level except by His might....His alone. Daily I acknowledge the great mercy of my Mentor. This morning again, I trust Him to help me finish this story well. My God is glorious in it because without Him I can do nothing. Don't even want to. But with God, all things are possible!
You have been borne by Me from before your birth, carried from the womb. Even to old age, I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear. I will carry and I will save. Isaiah 46
O God, from my youth You have taught me, and I still proclaim Your wondrous deeds. So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me until I proclaim Your might to another generation, Your power to all those to come. (Verses 14-18)
Despite the sagging and wrinkling of the "getting old" experience, there is a richness of experience that can only be accomplished by living. It's a crying shame I didn't know when I was twenty what I now know about ....well, everything. At twenty, I was married. That's a scary thought now, at my current ripe old age. I knew relatively little about being a wife, except I could cook and clean. But Bill and I had to learn to relate to each other as the adults we barely were (though he was a much older twenty-four). Teaching high school, having children, moving around from state to state, crushing into each other's families, and having to be financially creative in order to live challenged us to trust our God. On top of that were the hurts inevitable in living life. Pressures from our world had increased to include all that happened to our children in their worlds. Every life has in it quite enough drama for which it needs to rely on a strength greater than can be mustered alone. Everyone must reach to something at some point, or points, in this sojourn on earth. It matters to our particular story what we grasp.
I can't remember a time when I didn't love Jesus. As a little Baptist girl growing up, I heard (and heeded, as a good Baptist) the salvation story every week at least once in the church service. I remember going forward time and time again because the ache in my heart to please Him could only be eased by confessing at the altar my need for Him. I realize now it was a call to something more. In high school I went to a retreat in Waco at a women's university there. Alone in the chapel I felt God call me to a higher commitment to Him. By the time I hit college myself, however, I had huge questions that took my mind past the walking the aisle experiences of my childhood. But God knew my rebellion wasn't a way of carte blanch sinning -- an excuse for doing all I knew was wrong to do. I really wanted to know the answers to the questions I thought maybe I was the only one asking. Ignoring my hubris, my God navigated my confused little heart toward Truth. And that has been our way, God and me. I don't understand and run. God chases me down and explains it...or salves it. Too many times to number. His reasons for loving me, past my knowledge.
I could recount all the issues of my life the past sixty years and all would know His particular greatness in my story. We have walked together through deaths, tornadoes, hurricanes, births, travels, immense loss, unfathomable personal triumphs, unspeakable joy, gut-wrenching sorrow, prodigious forgiveness and mercy, soul-destroying confusion and foot-stomping victories. In all of it, I have seen Him. Sometimes in front of me....sometimes behind. Usually frantic in the moment, though I have learned my God is faithful. In my little life. But that counts, doesn't it? To be able to live out before our children, spiritual and begotten, a life that can be traced back to the faithfulness of God? Not my own sweet victories. There are truly few of those. However, even in my squirming imperfections in the midst of chaos, God's hand in calming the storm shows even greater. Grace abounds where even my sin looked to be an impossible mountain to overcome. It's my life. My one story. Those who read it must see how, from start to finish, Jesus alone gives it meaning. No victory without His having led the charge. No sorrow borne alone. No rebellion so deep He couldn't penetrate it. No joy Jesus didn't share.
My life isn't a perfect picture of His power, but I hope He is perfecting His grace in me. Don't look to me for the rulebook -- the "Christianity for Dummies" -- though that would be an appropriate title. You can't plan for the things that knock us down or lift us up in our surprising lives. There are no rules on how to navigate a father being jailed for pedophilia. Trust is all we have through much of our journey. Parents die. Sometimes children. Jobs are won and lost. Relationships jettisoned. Money gone. The future is insecure and iffy. So the reader of my story won't find me always doing everything right. It's a messy plot line with spikes and nadirs. My God writes it. The Author and Finisher of it. If, at the end of my life, He is what the generation to follow me sees, that will be enough to warrant my lines and graying hair (I only assume it's gray...haven't seen the real color in years). I will not have succeeded on any level except by His might....His alone. Daily I acknowledge the great mercy of my Mentor. This morning again, I trust Him to help me finish this story well. My God is glorious in it because without Him I can do nothing. Don't even want to. But with God, all things are possible!
You have been borne by Me from before your birth, carried from the womb. Even to old age, I am He, and to gray hairs I will carry you. I have made, and I will bear. I will carry and I will save. Isaiah 46
I like this blog post. I could say a lot of the same things, in slighlty different language, especially about what it feels like to look at life from the perspective of age. I've been in those same dark waters and have learned to swim, and I come ashore as often as possible. I am glad that we have both allowed our connection to take shape again, warts and all. :)
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