“Seasoned” Life Can Bring Renewed Joy

Ecclesiastes 3:11 “Yet God has made everything beautiful for its own time.” NLT

Could it mean that even as we age, although we may be less nimble, we are still beautiful in this time, while our bodies and minds change into the next season of life?

Looking over the seasons of my life, I am fascinated, finding that life’s stages seem to be circular. We start life as helpless babes, a blank slate absorbing everything around us and developing into our character. This reminds me of the time we spent helping to care for one of my granddaughters. She amazed us at how, even before she could walk, she was showing clear and specific characteristic traits. Babies then rocket into the next stage with haste through the toddler to school-age stage. Then quickly flinging into the tough to navigate hormonal and social awkward stages of the teens and early, “who am I and what am I going to do for the rest of my life” stage. Possibly the pinnacle of our youthful longing is for the arrival of — adulthood. Once we reach adulthood, we are usually too busy to completely stop and think about the next season. Actually, aren’t we all fighting tooth and nail to ignore our fast approaching golden years by this stage?

Now, I’m seeing the circle of life closing the loop. As aging may slow us down, sometimes even shrinking our outer frames, we’re getting closer to that helpless babe, once again. We can make this time special, though. It can be a sweeter, more intimate and comforting season with God, if we choose.

Through the stages of mid-life and beyond, I know God delights in us as deeply as he delights in the laughter of a baby. How do I know this? In my late forties I was in a grocery store reading a product label… well, I was trying to read the label. To better bring the words into focus, I first moved my arm closer to my body. When that didn’t work, I moved my arm as far away as I could and it was only a little better. I quickly looked up because I was certain I heard the Lord’s laughter. A time I could have become worried about my sight turned into one of shared laughter with God. Besides, I don’t have to be able to read all the words to know if it’s a long paragraph of ingredients it’s not the best food for me.

2 Corinthians 4:16 So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. ESV

I used to listen to other women talk about hot flashes and thought to myself, “I’m looking forward to this time.” I’m often cold and found huddling under a blanket, so I was certain to enjoy this time. What I didn’t understand then was that the heat (which ignites like a gas furnace) came from inside of me, and it wanted out, now! Those first few months of menopausal hot flashes I was working in a service center job. I felt bad for the people I was serving seeing the sweat beading on my forehead and upper lip possibly thinking they were making me nervous, so I boldly explained that it wasn’t them just that “fun stage of life.” Instead of turning to despair, I was sharing another time of laughter with God.

Now, in my early sixties I need aid to see, and at some point in the future I may need aid to hear, and help to maneuver around, but what I am certain of is this — his delight in me hasn’t changed. Actually, I am grateful for these seasons of life. Although they bring uncertainty, sometimes pain and discomfort, they also bring me closer to God. I will always be able to lean into him, ask him anything like being able to see what he needs me to see, hearing what he needs me to hear, and feeling what he shares from his heart to mine, both in the physical and spiritual.

Isn’t it by his most wondrous grace that we can experience him inside and outside of our bodies and minds? We may be “seasoned,” but as long as he gives us breath, and the ability to move and think, we can continue to glorify him. I am kinder to myself now, dancing, singing, and playing activities that bring me joy. Getting out into the natural beauty of the world He created is another way I move into this “seasoned” life with renewed hope and joy.

Psalms 73:26 My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever. ESV

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