Thoughts On Growing Old

I was watching a video this week which showed how people from an old TV show have changed. I found myself saying how old they have gotten then I looked in the mirror. 

The painful truth is that I am old now.

Honestly I hate it. How did it get here so fast?

I now move at a slower pace and I have pains that never go away.

A simple sneeze can pull a back muscle and a stumble on a step can cause a tumble.

Is this what my life has become now? Old and slow.

I am realizing the truth of how short life really is. I may not seem short but when you get to where I am it’s seems a blur.

The Bible says the life is like a vapor and it’s true.

I am thankful that I have had the opportunity to do a lot in my life. It seems that some can never appreciate where they are or be content with the life they have.

It’s funny how my mind doesn’t comprehend how old I really am. However, my body will quickly remind me of my limitations now.

As I am the older person now it is disheartening to see how millennials view their elders.

We never expected our grandparents to raise us or babysit us.

We visited them we didn’t expect them to visit us.

We always said yes ma’am/no ma’am and yes sir/no sir.

When we entered a room we always make sure they had a place to sit.

We were patient with our elders. We didn’t have phones that kept us from listening to their stories or valuing their advice.

We always made them feel special on special days.

Most important of all we respected and valued them.

Sadly this is not how it is now in our social media driven world.

It is what it is. I mean I am older but I don’t consider myself as elderly.

I do not look forward to when I eventually lose my independence and need someone to take care of me. I don’t want to be a burden to someone else. 

The good news is that I’m not there yet.  I’m not ready to check into a nursing home. There are still adventures I want to have and enjoy things until the time when I can’t. I’m taking advantage of the time I have now.

The universal truth is that we all get old. We should live our lives and it never should get old to treat others as we would like to be treated.

 

What Will People Think?

Do you worry about what others think of you?

I think we all do to a certain extent and depending on who is around us.

The concern about what others think of us can go to the extreme of worrying too much or not caring at all. There needs to be a healthy balance.

I speak from life experience.

For the first 18 years of my life, I grew up as a preacher’s kid. There were always people judging me in some way or having their conclusions about me when many times they didn’t even know me.

I was obsessed over what people thought of me and it carried over into much of my early adult life.

There was a time in my life I endured a difficult person who always had her opinions and assumptions about me. It didn’t matter what I did or didn’t do, she always had a critical opinion about me. I could never measure up until one day I had a revelation. I realized that it didn’t matter what her opinion of me was. Her opinion didn’t mean she was right.

From that day forward I was a different person.

I became a person who was less worried about what people thought. I didn’t (and never) go to the extreme of never worrying about hurting people’s feelings but I also had to realize that my feelings were important too.

I have made many decisions over the past several years for my own happiness. I’m sure others have been hurt or even disappointed in me but that is on them. I can’t be responsible for other’s expectations of me. I lived that life too many years and wasted opportunities to be happy earlier in my life. Whatever people think of me is between them and whatever God they serve.

When people want to hear yes, and you tell them no, they never like it. But those who are truly your friends will give you the freedom to make your own decisions. People who genuinely care about you and not what you can do for them will be happy for you.

Unfortunately, I have had family members in my life who were quick to judge and turn on me. One mistake would wipe out many times of good. They would be quick to cut me off without giving me the benefit of the doubt. Sometimes I have had to endure the bad feelings to preserve boundaries in my life. You will realize that in life hurting people will hurt others. We have to expect that and set our boundaries to manage those people who are in our lives.

Am I bitter? No. Just learned a valuable and painful lesson from it. People still have their assumptions about me. That’s fine. I can’t do anything about that. I can only take one step at a time. Life is like that. You do the best you can.

The reality is that we can’t possibly please everyone. I have tried and I can tell you that you will live a frustrated life if you try.

We all have our own journey, and we should not live our lives based on our expectations of others.

Where is God when we are in pain?

There is one thing in life that can humble us all.

Pain. 

I have recently started having pain in my knee.  Usually it only bothers me when I am going down certain stairs.  A few days ago my wife and I were watching a show and shortly into it I started feeling intense pain in that same knee.  I could not stand up or straighten my leg. I even wondered at one point how much pain I could take.  It was bad.  

I don’t like being me on days when I am in pain.  It’s not the Milton you want me to be. 

Pain is our great equalizer. It’s part of being human. 

I can’t imagine those who have to endure chronic pain every day.  It definitely puts someone in a negative mindset as they are constantly striving for the fleeting moments without pain.  

I could give you a lot of God-things about dealing with pain but I will admit that I don’t handle pain very well.  I get moody and withdrawn. I just want the pain to end.  I will take aspirin or whatever I can get that will take away the pain.  

Yes, I trust God and I absolutely believe He can heal but do you want to know a secret that I hate to admit?  Too many times when I am in pain, I don’t even think to pray about my pain or ask God to heal me.  I don’t know why.  

I will change that by asking Him a lot more.  If not, I will just ask Him to help me to endure the pain.  

I don’t like pain.  It hurts and it makes me feel weak.  

I know God cares about our pain but it sure is difficult when we are hurting.  

We all face pain in some way.  It isn’t something we can avoid.  I know there are some preachers who will allege that the reason we are not healed from pain is due to a lack of faith but that simply isn’t Biblical.  We can still have faith but understand that His strength will help us in our pain.  Somehow we have to find our way through it and manage it.