Middle Age

Some one recently asked me, “How do you relate to the elderly and the youth in your church?”  I had to think about that for a minute, I don’t really group the church members into age into age categories.  However, my reply was this, “I’m at a strange age right now (43), the kids think I’m an old man and the elderly think I’m just a youngster-it’s weird.”  I am at that place in life they call-middle age.  In many ways middle age is like being a teenager all over again.  You aren’t really old, but you aren’t young either.  Here are some reasons middle age is like being a teenager again,

1.       Your body is growing; it’s just in a more horizontal than vertical direction.

2.      You let your hair grow out-except it grows out of your nose and ears more than your head.

3.      You have to start shaving.  Only for men it’s not their face it’s their back.  I’m not sure how this phenomena effects women and probably don’t need to know. 

4.      You want to sleep all the time.

5.      It’s hard to focus and concentrate.

6.      You have an overwhelming urge to be free of all responsibility and live an adventurous life.  For me it’s a recurring fantasy of being a pirate on the Mississippi River. 

7.      You develop “selective” hearing.  Only as a middle aged person the selection is dictated by your hardening eardrums not by who is speaking to you.

8.      You have a hard time remembering things.

9.      You cry and laugh at really strange times.  I broke down the other day watching a rerun of Happy Days.

10.  You are suddenly conscious that your clothes are no longer “cool”.

11.  You really question authority (Ask me about the traffic cameras some time).

12.  Summer passes way too fast.

That’s sort of a “Dirty Dozen” on being middle aged.  Here is a list of things that are more positive about being middle-age,

1.       You are a bit wiser.

2.      Hopefully, you know who and Whose you are and what you wan to do with your life.

3.      You realize that people’s opinions are just that-opinions, not evaluations of your life.

4.      You have learned that love is to be cherished.

5.      You have learned that you are not: invincible, perfect, irreplaceable, or the center of the universe.

6.        You value each day that you have with friends and family. 

7.      You appreciate that things are never as bad as they seem and that things could always be worse.

That’s sort of a “Magnificent Seven” on being middle-aged.  I thank God that He has allowed me to live this long and the experience the things that I have experienced.  I don’t mind being middle age and I look forward to growing older.  Hey, getting older sure beats the alternative-doesn’t it? 

So what do like (or hate) about getting older?

A couple of thing:

1.  Can you guess who is in the photo?

2.  Bob Farmer has a blog check it out at:

www. lifeforliving.blogspot.com