It Is Not Too Late To Matter

   Back a few years, when our church was young, there were not many senior adults in the congregational mix. So, those of us who were somewhat older, tended to band together, and when the church grew and more seniors joined the ranks, they just naturally gravitated to our group.

   When the church began to use Home Groups as a vehicle for fellowship and study, the powers that be made the senior adults into one of those, and so it has remained till this day. People have come and gone, but the core of that group is still there.

   A couple of Thursdays ago, when this group met, I looked around the room, thought about the ages represented by those folks, and realized that, for the most part, the group was still intact. Our ages run from the low 80s down into the mid 60s, and, although we had received a few widows into our fellowship, the couples that had been a consistent part were still very active and none had lost their mates.

   I can remember back when my parents were living, that their latter days seemed to be filled with visits to the hospital, nursing home or even the funeral home, as the marriages around them were split by the death of one partner, but our group had not encountered that.

  Then the call came that one of our friends in this group had to be rushed to Jacksonville to have bypass surgery the next day. Mayre Lou and I, along with another couple, made plans to go down to be with the wife as the husband went through the surgery, and so we did.

   As we sat in the surgical waiting room, my mind drifted back to the those thoughts from a few nights previous. Nothing speaks more of mortality than a hospital waiting room, and here we were, right in the middle of it.

   The surgery was successful, and the man is beginning the recovery process, but, as I read these verses from Psalm 90 this morning, I wondered about how much longer I, or any of the other members of this Home Group, might be around.

   "The years of our life are seventy,
or even by reason of strength eighty;"
   Here I stand right in the middle of this projected age span.

   Farther down in that same Psalm are these words that become my prayer for this morning:

   "Teach us to live wisely and well!"

   I don't want to just fill my remaining days with stuff, but with things that matter. God help me.