My sister is over two years older than I am, though she doesn't like to be reminded of such figures. In fact, on our respective birthday cards she is the more likely to stress the fact that I am getting older. Maybe it's just a woman thing but I think I'm the only member of our staff with my natural hair colour and I suppose I don't go to any great lengths to hide my age, and, anyway, looks can be incredibly deceiving. For some people age effortlessly while for others the getting older process is written all over the wrinkles on their faces. I suppose you can hide advancing years on the outside but internally, Old Father Time just marches on. Often I like to remind wife that when we started to date, she was three quarters of my age, but when we married she was four fifths and now, in the year of our silver wedding anniversary, she is nine tenths of the age I have reached. I keep telling her she is getting closer so she must be growing older more quickly than I am, so I reckon if I live to be one hundred, she'll have already passed me. However, I might also add that to suggest such things to a lady is probably not a brilliant idea as it can cause strange reactions and might even lead to bruising or at the very least picture and no sound! Not that I'm speaking from experience, you understand, it's just a hunch.
But it is weird how one's vision of age changes as we get older and maybe also how others perceive us in a way that we don't see ourselves. Somehow, middle age just seems to land on your doorstep, without any warning. One day you're a twenty or thirty something and the next, you're no longer able to go to the young adults after-church coffee bar because all the younger set who were kids and teenagers yesterday, grew up overnight and give you the funniest looks. I think I first realised what older really meant, one day on the rugby field, when a mate, whom I had played in the same team since age twelve to our then position of moving back down through the teams at the club,had an altercation with his opponent and during the words that were exchanged he was referred to as a 'fossil'. Maybe it was because he had gone prematurely grey and maybe we all fell about laughing too much immediately after that, but it did stick as a sharp reminder that no matter who you are, there is always a younger pretender waiting, sometimes impatiently, for your throne.
The trouble is that life seems to move so fast, that I can recall vividly many of the thing I was doing when I was the age of our two boys and even now they are beyond the teenage years so I guess the eleven year olds in my class would consider them to be old too. I'm not even going to consider what they think of me, but the other week when it was my birthday and the whole school sang 'Happy Birthday' to me in Assembly, a primary one girl laughed uncontrollably through the whole verse and for a while afterwards too. Maybe I should be like a good friend of mine, who decided to stop having birthdays after he reached forty. Being older has many drawbacks. You can score goals and tries in your head but not on the pitch, you can race one hundred metres and still not be out of breath, though getting the car stopped quickly can be a problem. You can see the newspaper but you can't read it, you can see the film but you can't hear it, you remember your wife's birthday but forget to buy hr a present and, if you're waiting for your woman to get herself ready to go out, just double the time you used to give her when you first got married. But there are hidden advantages too. All those years of experience in life have taught you how to recognise a strange sound under the bonnet, how to advise your children so that they don't make the same mistakes you did and of course how to say the right things at the right time.
I guess if getting older has taught me anything it is to be patient, with my temper, with my words and with my actions. But it has also taught me that hindsight is a wonderful thing, for in looking back I can see how God's hand has been with me in the small things and the big decisions and that it is He who has taught me patience and hopefully grace toward others. But I think He also teaches me that getting older does not mean becoming less useful for Him but simply involves being used in a different way, possibly even a different sphere of service. People like Abraham, Sarah, Noah, Zechariah, Elizabeth, and Anna were all well advanced in years when God gave them a special job and while I haven't reached their senior years, I understand that God never stops working with us and we continue each day as we get older in the faith of trying to be more like Him. I suppose my prayer to Him would echo that of the Psalmist who wrote, 'Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me, O God, till I declare your power to the next generation, your might to all who are to come.' OLDER? OR LED?
