OUT TO PASTOR: I wasn’t born old – it just happened that way

Everywhere I look these days, people are obsessed with age. More products are sold today to make you look younger than anything else. Everybody desires to look younger than what they actually are. I think that is rather hypocritical.

Just saying.

It seems to me that nobody is happy with the way they are. When you are young, you want to be old, and then when you get old you want to be young. Nobody is happy being what they are at the time.

The problem with me is that not all my clocks are ticking at the same time. Things seem to just creep up on me without me being aware of any of it.

For one, I did not know I was old. It dawned on me this past week when I was sitting in my chair in the middle of the afternoon. I had no inspiration to get out of the chair and go do something. You know, sometimes it is important just to chill out for a little bit.

Not everybody thinks this. The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage has a different view.

As I said, I was just chilling in my chair when my wife walked by, stopped in front of me, put both hands on her hips and stared at me for a moment giving me that look. Then she said, “I guess you’re getting old, aren’t you?”

With that, she whirled around and walked away, leaving me to my own thoughts.

I never thought of myself as “old,” but then, my wife would never lie to me. If she thinks I am getting old, well, I must be getting old.

Then I chuckled to myself. As I thought about me being old and my wife recognizing that I am old, it dawned on me that she is older than me. Now please, do not let her know I let this slip out of the bag. But, if I’m old, what does that make her?

Being the gentleman that I am, and a great lover of life, I will never bring this to her attention. If she finds out that she is old, she will never learn this information from me. I may be old, but my goal is to get older.

Right after this little incident, I walked into a McDonald’s restaurant to get some coffee. I prefer to keep certain things to myself and my age is one of them. I cannot hide my good looks; it is all out there in the open for everybody to see. But my age is something a little different. I try to keep that to myself.

“Are you a senior citizen?” The waitress behind the counter asked chipperly.

At first, this really irritated me. What business is it of her with regards to my age? I was just about ready to ask her what her age was when she changed the whole conversation.

“If you are a senior citizen your coffee is only $.80.” With that she smiled quite gingerly.

That puts age in a very different perspective for me. Normally, coffee is $1.39, but for senior citizens, it is only $.80. A lot of things I am not very proficient at, but arithmetic is not one of them. If I would admit to this young lady that I was a senior citizen, I could save $.59. I do not know about anybody else, but $.59 is $.59!

“Why, yes,” I muttered, “I am a senior citizen.”

“Oh dear,” she giggled, “you sure do not look like a senior citizen to me.”

Now, I do not know if she really meant that or not but allow me to repeat myself, $.59 is $.59!

I have never thought of myself as old, just older. And, as a friend of mine used to say, “I plan to get as old as I possibly can get.”

Getting old has many benefits and $.59 is only the beginning.

My great objective from this time on is to cash in on as much Senior Citizen benefits as I can get. After all, $.59 is $.59! And, if I get a cup of coffee every day, I will save $215.35 in the year, every year. Who would have thought that getting old would pay such rich dividends?

There is a strange anomaly that most people do not want to get old but then they do not want to die either. The only remedy for not getting old is…

It is not getting old that is the problem, it is not discovering the real foundation of life which is none other than Jesus Christ.

“The glory of young men is their strength: and the beauty of old men is the gray head” (Proverbs 20:29).

Getting old is not for sissies. It takes a real man to get old.

Dr. James L. Snyder, pastor of the Family of God Fellowship, lives with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage in Ocala, FL. Call him at 352-687-4240 or e-mail jamessnyder2@att.net . The church web site is www.whatafellowship.com.