a common housewife in the fast lane by prisonerofhope

I wrote this a little over a year ago. Since I forgot to celebrate my first anniversary on the blogstream, I will consider this my commemoration. BTW, if it seems much longer and wordier than the posts I've written since the beginning of the summer, you can chalk it up to the fact that I didn't have two year old Gabriel then. My time felt like it was more my own......even with six other children at home! At least everyone went to school and work and gave me a chance to THINK! *slaps head with hand, smirks* BTW, if I told you earlier today that I wouldn't be here tonight, you can safely assume the plans changed at the last minute. I'm baaaaaack!

Today is April 1st, 2006. I am five days away from being 53 years old. I remember when I was a kid and I was thinking ahead to the year 2000. I thought, “oh, I will be forty-seven then…..that is soooo old…..practically dead!”

I remember walking to and from my high school each school day. It was about 1½ miles from my home. There was a very old woman who used to walk to the store about the same time in the afternoon every day after school.

I would look at her....stare at her was more like it....I don’t know how old she was, but she seemed ancient. She was white-haired and stooped. She moved very slowly and determinedly, while my friend and I walked quickly, ran at times, even with loads of books in our arms (backpacks were for camping in those days!), jumped over puddles, climbed up on snow banks in the winter and tossed snowballs at each other. We laughed about inane things and talked about what we would do if we ever had a million dollars. Getting old sure wasn’t in our future plans. I looked at the lady across the street, plowing along at a snails pace and I felt sorry for her...but then I had another thought.

“I don’t want that EVER to be ME!” I was looking at the outward, hobbling deformity of her body. I had no thought to whatever inward beauty or wisdom there might be. I think I may have actually hoped to be dead before I got to that age.

Sometime after that I accidently walked in on my mother while she was changing. My mother was a very beautiful woman in her day. Even at her elderly age now men still show interest. At eighty years old she was asked by a long time friend to marry him. She turned him down, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t interested. I remember the look of her middle aged body though, so unlike my newly budding one, somewhat sagging after five children, and many years of living. I remember thinking again, “I don’t want that EVER to be ME!”

I visited a nursing home for the first time when I was a teenager. It was a nice one by most standards. Yet, I remember the stuffy, unventilated smells of life and humanity, and I saw old people in wheelchairs lined up and down the hallway. As I walked past them they made incoherent statements to me and I alternately looked away and peeked at them with some fear and loathing. Not that I didn’t feel sorry for them or have compassion....I just didn’t ever want to BE them. Somewhere in the back of my mind I made the decision that I would not.

My conclusion was that I didn’t want to be old....and that I wouldn’t be. Now I tell my kids, ‘grow old or die young’. Some people would say to ‘die young and you will leave a better looking corpse’. Just as my youthful thoughts were very ignorant, so is that statement.

I didn’t think of the wonderful things that happen when one is old, which I’m sure my young readers are struggling to imagine as they read this. It was inconceivable to me that anything could be good about being old. At least as good as when one is young. When one is young you have that feeling of being on top of the world, carefree and innocent, being young and active and being able to do what ever one wants to do with no constraints but that which is put on you by adults.

I made the inane decision in my head that I was NOT going to be old. I was going to be young forever…..that must be what the Bible calls the ‘folly of youth’. The things we think that are not true, but we think we can make them true just because we think them.

I’m not as old as the people in the nursing home….I’m not even as old as the woman limping up the street while I sauntered down. I don’t remember how old my mom was the day I walked in on her, but I’m pretty sure I’m older now than she was then. She wasn't a grandmother yet and she was a young one, while I was not.

I’m old enough to be a grandmother.

I’m old enough to have picked up a box of apples the other day and to still feel the pain in my back, two days later, when I felt a muscle complain. That pain gets better as the day goes on but when I arise in the morning I am so stiff that I am more hobbled than the woman on the street.

I’m old enough to have to hand over my younger granddaughters when I stand up because I am fearful of walking with them, holding them in my arms while I am walking, just in case I might trip. I didn’t feel that way even four years ago when I babysat for, and carried, my oldest grandson everywhere.

I am old enough to feel so tired at the end of the day that I can’t even think straight and my eyes are blurry. I am old enough that when I want to do my crossword puzzle I need my middle-aged granny glasses, the same kind my mother used to wear, to help me see the numbers. I never wore glasses before and am finding them a nuisance. I can still see the clues without them, if I squint hard enough, but I will put the wrong answer in the wrong box because I cannot make the numbers out at all. Since I’ve always had a penchant for doing the puzzle in ink it makes quite a mess if I don’t have my glasses with me!

I’m old enough now to have changed my mind.....and to know that the change isn’t based on conceit that might come from old age, or fear of death, but on the humility that life can breed.

I’m old enough to know that it is better to be old and feeble yet to possess wisdom, than to be young and stupid.

I’m old enough to know that a dinner of herbs and a dry morsel with quietness and love, is better, especially when spent with one close friend or family, than a steak dinner eaten with hateful, nasty folk.

I’m old enough to know that pleasant words, not those sassy, sarcastic, putdowns that I have heard on annoying TV sitcoms, are like honeycomb…they are sweet to the soul and health to the bones.

I’m old enough to know that children’s children are the crown of old men....and women too. Even to the unsaved. This is a non-sectarian crown. Let me just tell you about them grandchildren again....

I’m old enough to know that the name of the Lord is a strong tower and that whenever I have run to it I am saved. I’m old enough to know that in quietness and repentance I have found my salvation.

I am old enough to know that the discretion of a man makes him slow to anger, but the contentions of a wife are a continual dripping, which is why I work very hard at not being that nagging hen-pecker that is so aggravating to be around.

I’m old enough to know that laziness causes deep sleep and that slackers can get to the point where they are so lazy that they won’t even lift their hand to their mouth to eat.

I’m old enough to know that he who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord and the Lord, Himself, will repay whatever is given.

I’m old enough to know that death and life are in the power of my own tongue and that I will reap the fruit of whatever I speak.

I am old enough to know that I would rather be poor than to be a liar.

I am old enough to know that strong drink is a mocker and a brawler and it is not a wise choice, which is why, even though I grew up with very respectable social drinkers, I still do not imbibe and have cautioned my children from such use.

I’m old enough to know that a good name is better than great riches and even if you don’t have a good name with men that you can still keep your heart pure before God and that is even better.

I’m old enough to know that foolishness is bound up in the heart of a child and that discipline, which is training, not punishment as some think, and which is uncommon these days, will drive it from them

I’m old enough to know that without the hope of heaven… without the knowledge that there IS something more, this life becomes about “being born, living and dying, and going in to the ground”.... with no hope.

I am old enough to know that my outward shell may be dying, but my inward man is being renewed day by day.

I don’t believe in God because I want to assuage some fear of being left in a coffin with nothing to look forward to at the end of my days. I believe in God because if I don’t, life....this life, is as Solomon the Preacher said, vanity. ‘All is vanity’. I have lived long enough to know that a life lived in and for Christ is not vain.

The Lord has taught me to number my days that I might gain a heart of wisdom. He has taught me that this life is temporal and it passes like vapor into the air. It is like the rose that buds and blooms and then withers and dies.

That’s what I was seeing when I was 15. The withering and dying...but I couldn’t see past that. I couldn’t see that middle age can be the most fun time of one’s life, depending on how one spends it, but old age can be, depending on how one views it, the most wise, the most settled, and the most close to heaven that we can get while still living here on earth.

I do not claim to have discovered all this wisdom for myself. I contend that I have lived long enough, seen more than enough, and suffered plenty enough to have learned the truth of things that I read from the Word when I was younger and did not comprehend.

If we are unable to see the handiwork of God by the time we have grandchildren, I dare say we never may. I watched all three of mine be born...and there is a miracle in that which will never leave me.

I have talked to atheists about their grandchildren and the same wonder comes to their eyes that I know is in my own. The same desire to show off pictures, talk about the cute things they do, etc.

The only difference between these other Papas and Nanas and myself is that I know that my Redeemer lives and I know that I will stand with Him on that day, and because of that I know the Author of my blessings and I praise Him. And grandchildren are SUCH a blessing, aren’t they Kozy? People who don’t have them yet don’t know...but you wait, you just wait!

I so loved allowing the Holy Spirit to bring these things to my mind that I think I may do it again sometime. For now though, I hear the second generation of my progeny arising, so I must beg off now. There’s just something about living to see your children’s children. Can I just say that it doesn’t get any better than this on this side of heaven?

I wrote this piece, extemporaneously, without the benefit of scripture in front of me so I did not include the references to my paraphrased verses…….so if you should recognize the plagiarism of my writing as something you may have read from God’s Word, I heartily recommend that you find yourself a concordance, which can be found for free on the internet as well as in book form, and look up the verses, mainly in Proverbs, but a few other books as well, for yourself. I thought about looking them all up for you, dear reader, but the Lord checked my spirit on that and said to leave it to you if you are so inclined. Particularly if you don’t believe my words… but even if you do.