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Moving Ahead and Looking Back: Day 5

Those who trust Him wholly find Him wholly true.
                                 “Like a River Glorious” Frances Ridley Havergal


In my life I have been: a daughter, a mother, a wife, a grand-mother, a sister, a friend, a student and a teacher. If you made a list, yours might look a lot like mine. In fact, a lot of women’s lists might look like mine.

The big difference for us, living in a Western culture, isn’t what you do, but how long you will do it. In many parts of the world, even today, a woman marries, raises her children and then, her job (and her usefulness to the society) is complete. For women who are blessed to live in a place and time where nutrition and medicine can maintain health and vigor there can be decades of productive life ahead.

Moving ahead, for any of us at any stage, involves choices, and as someone said, “To not choose is also a choice.”  As I move ahead to a new chapter, there is one choice that must be paramount: to choose to grow in my relationship with God through His Son.

Rebellious teen-agers, financial problems, marital strains and career challenges, all of these tend to send us to our knees before an open Bible. But the peaceful rhythm of retirement can lull us into believing that we have paid our debt to others and this stage of life is “me time.”

The other alternative is to do what we have always done, church-wise: same service, same pew, same “see you next Wednesday” volunteer work. Yesterday’s spiritual manna will not provide adequate nourishment for today’s growth which is preparing us for tomorrow’s changes and challenges.

Every day given to us by God is intended to be a fresh experience. Fresh! Don’t you love the word? My face may show the years, my energy level may have tapered off or even taken a nose-dive, but if my soul is fresh in Him, then, right up until the end, I am good, I am growing and inside I am still sixteen.

…His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness (Lamentations 3:22, 23).

Nancy Shirah

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