Good morning…
As I turn 62 on Sunday, March 23rd, I am learning so many marvelous, new things.
- The best birthday cake is shared. A friend in our therapeutic community group shared with us a homemade pound cake. My piece to eat and my piece to take home were instead sliced and shared with about eight young adult strangers playing basketball at PAWkids.
2) Make new friends and keep the old. After sharing my birthday cake with strangers who became new friends, I enjoyed a birthday lunch with my oldest friend in Atlanta, a friend I met in 1995, when we first moved to Georgia from the midwest.
3) My best years are ahead of me. I am marinating in the wisdom of this quote from Practicing the Way by John Mark Comer. “The spiritual teacher Pete Scazzero once told me a maxim that was passed on to him by an older, wiser mentor: ‘The best decade of your life will be your seventies, the second best will be your eighties, and the third best will be your sixties.’ By best he did not mean the happiest (though I expect that too) but our richest and most joyful and most helpful to others.” (74)
4) Love is the acid test of spiritual growth. “The single most important question is: “Are we becoming more loving?” …If you want to chart your progress on the spiritual journey, test the quality of your closest relationships – namely by love and the fruits of the spirit. Would the people who know you best say you are becoming more loving, joyful and at peace? …Are you growing in love not just for your friends and family but for your enemies? …And is all of this feeling more and more natural and less forced? More and more like this is just who you are?” (76-77)
5) Union with God is the meaning of our human existence. “Jesus’ invitation to apprentice under him isn’t just the chance to become people of love who are like God; it’s a chance to enter the inner life of God himself. The ancients called it “union” with God, and it is the very meaning of our human existence – for me and for every human on the planet, whether they realize and receive it or not.” (79)
6) My constant prayer is for “gracious acceptance” of whatever God allows each day. This two word phase was coined while my mom was unresponsive in ICU during my Valentine’s Day visit to Ohio. This prayer stays with me daily as my mom’s health slowly improves and “gracious acceptance” is expanding to touch all aspects of my 62-year-old life.
Everything is already yours as a gift—…the world, life, death, the present, the future—all of it is yours, and you are privileged to be in union with Christ, who is in union with God (1 Corinthians 3:22-23, MSG).
…Sue…
