Sixty-Something

The average life expectancy in the US is 78.7 years, having increased from a century ago of 51.5.  The demographics vary.  If you live in Hawaii, the average age increases to over eighty.  If you live in the deep South, such as Mississippi, it decreases to 73.9 years.  Race and gender effect the averages, too, and statically women average outliving men by about five years.  

When I started this blog, I was fifty-eight. I was counting down or should I say "up" to sixty.  It seems I slept a few nights and turned around and now I'm sixty-two, marching toward sixty-three. I have no idea how many years I will have but I want to live them well.  My Mom is ninety-nine, but my sister only lived to fifty-eight, my late husband to fifty-four, my dad to sixty-four, and my oldest brother to sixty-three.  That makes me take account of how I have spent my 62 years and how I will spend those precious days I have left. I realize each is a gift from God.  

None of us knows how many years we get to walk this earth.  It makes me think of a saying, "we don't get to choose when and how we die, but we do get to choose how we live.

Last week, I chose to spend a brief bit of my time shopping an estate sale.  That sale visit led to this post. It was the second day of the sale when normally most things are gone. Thousands of dollars of things had already been sold yet thousands of things remained.  I realized their previous owner had spent much of their time acquiring stuff.  It made me feel sad and the sheer amount of things made me really think about what is important to me.  I took pics of a little that remained but there were several more tables of glass plus tons of other types of collectables (beyond what is posted here.)

I've spent times in my life acquiring stuff too, just not to this degree.  When I die,  I'd hope the things that live on for my family aren't too much of the above.  Father, help me to write this as a prayer to You.  Help me live these things out in my life that my family may be left with these memories:

1. That I loved God and His Word
2. That I loved them
3. That I was a faithful daughter, wife, mom, sister, friend, grandmother
4. That I loved life and enjoyed it
5. That I invested in people, more than stuff, and cared, truly cared, about them
6. That I out grew some of my idiosyncrasies and became more Christ-like yearly
7. That I had a heart filled with thanksgiving (I write this one especially as a prayer)

Gal 5:22-23  But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

John 13:34  So now I am giving you a new commandment: Love each other. Just as I have loved you, you should love each other

..