45

I’m thankful that I made it 45 years.

I’ve known people who didn’t make it to ten, 20, 30, or 40.

I can recall the names of several people who died in their early 40s this year (some of them with COVID).

When I hear people complain about getting old, I wonder if they thought about the alternative.

Last night, on the eve of my birthday, I told my wife that I think 2020 is the year my youth ended. If I live to be very old, I will always look back on my life as “before 2020 (age 45)” and “after 2020 (age 45)”.

I’m grieving this. The other day, I admitted this to God and myself while taking a walk alone at night.

As I prayed about aging and death, I saw a light in the dark.

Christmas lights, to be sure, but also illumination for my soul.

From the place inside where Spirit speaks to me, I heard: One of the greatest gifts of aging is knowing you don’t have time.

And I said out loud: “That’s right. When I was young, I didn’t know what time was worth. I thought I had enough of it to do everything…or nothing. And that is exactly what I did! Everything and nothing!”

So the birthday gift God gave me this year is time. Not more time; less time. In my youth, I looked at the sand under my feet and thought I must be standing on a beach, an ocean of time stretching to the horizon. This year, God gave me eyes to see that the sand under my feet is not a beach; I’m in a desert. And time is not an ocean; it’s a little stream that has a little less water trickling through it each day.

I think that some men my age double down on distractions. This may be the “mid-life crisis” that is the punchline of jokes. The other day, I was reading about a man in his early 50s who left his wife of more than 20 years to date a 22-year old bartender. The funny (sad) thing is: He’s not going to be or feel younger with her. She’s only going to remind him of how old he really is!

The gift, if I choose to accept it, is to enjoy the perspective and wisdom of age. To know that I don’t have time to do everything or nothing. To know that I can use my wisdom to choose what to do with the time I have left.

I don’t trust people who say they don’t have regrets. Did they learn anything from the choices they made in their youth? What about when their choices harmed or hurt other people? Do they regret those choices?

I have lots of regrets. If I had it to do over, I would do a lot of things different. I don’t say this because I don’t like the way things turned out for me. I say it because some of the choices I made harmed or hurt people, including myself. Knowing what I know now, I choose differently.

That is wisdom and it is the gift of age. I can’t go back and remake the choices of my youth; but I can use what I learned from those choices to make better choices with the time I have left.

And, God willing, I have time left. Maybe a little. Maybe a lot. But, at age 45, I now know what that time is worth. And I have the wisdom to use it better than the time that already passed. Getting older is a very great gift because it is how we get to redeem the time we didn’t value in our youth.

So, I have faith that my “second act” will be better than my first. That “life after 45” will be ten times better than “life before 45.”

On what do I base this faith of mine?

This morning, I got up and went to get fresh bagels for my wife and fresh doughnuts for my son and me. This is what I do every Saturday morning. As I was bundling up to go, my wife tried to stop me.

“It’s your birthday today,” she said. “I should go get the bagels and doughnuts.”

“No,” I said. “I really enjoy going out to get breakfast for us. I would be less happy if I stayed home in bed.”

So, I scraped the windshield, warmed up the car, and drove the icy streets.

It was a joy.

If getting up early on a freezing Saturday morning to pick up bagels and doughnuts gives me such great joy for the joy it brings my family, I imagine that God gets great joy for the gifts he gives us.

In other words, experiencing life as a 45-year old father and husband reveals more to me about the heart and mind of God than any Bible verse.

I know God’s love for me because I got to live long enough to experience my love for my son and my wife. If my human love is just a shadow of God’s divine love, then I can have faith and hope that God is “going to bring me the doughnuts” and smile the whole time.

Not because I deserve God’s gifts, but because God loves to give gifts to the one he loves (me).

Thank you for reading this ramble. I hope it encourages you.

Grace and peace.