Old Age

Having just turned 34 last week I have a few reflection on the aging process.

1. Getting older always involves, from one angle, a narrowing of horizons. Less things seem possible and choices seem less free. It seems to me that maturity involves the recognition that there are many aspirations and dreams I will never realize. The need to constantly realize all my goals rather leaves me anxious, restless and ill-at-ease in the world.

2. Further, age increases the number of regrets. You are a 'victim' of your choices. This is why resurrection is so important. Resurrection means the redemption of my choices and decisions. There is hope of an open future with the Lord Jesus - in Him I am never a 'victim' of my 'bad' decisions. In Him, time is not disappearing like sand in a timeglass but is rather opening up more and more. Resurrection means the redemption of everything in my life.

3. Aging involves a greater fixing of my character. My choices are making more and more into something - or someone. I am in the process of becoming something. Therefore, every birthday should raise for me the question of my sanctification - does the increase in my age = an increase in my holiness? I don't want to get to 70, if I live that long, and find that I've become the cranky, self-obsessed person that has never grown....