More thoughts on aging
40 is now only a few days away, but I don’t think it will be as scary as I anticipated. In fact, this 39-year-old (I have to claim it one more time) is ready to embrace the next decade with enthusiasm.
I’ve heard from numerous people who have been willing to share tips or offer encouragement. I shared some from those turning 40 and 50 in last month’s column. This month, I’m featuring two who have recently turned 60.
Richard Maddox is a member of Shades Mountain Baptist Church, Vestavia Hills, and works for the Department of Justice in Birmingham. He shared with me things he now knows at 60 that he wished he had known at 40.
- The perfect will of God for believers may be summed up in two words — make disciples.
- The joy of really knowing the Word and the waste of ignoring the Word daily.
- How easy it is to be distracted by the temporal at the expense of the eternal.
- Long-term goals are accomplished one day at a time.
Christian author, speaker and teacher Denise George shared a light-hearted look at changing decades. Denise attempted to tiptoe past her 60th birthday, but her husband Timothy George, founding dean of Beeson Divinity School at Samford University in Birmingham, made sure that didn’t happen.
“When I turned 40 years old, I bought a pair of pink roller skates. I strapped them on my feet, took off down the sidewalk and almost broke my neck,” she said. “I guess I needed to prove to myself I could still skate like a 10-year-old.
“I don’t remember my 50th birthday. I was too busy rearing up energetic teenagers to even pause to realize I had crossed the half-century mark,” Denise said.
“When I recently turned 60 … I decided to keep this birthday a secret and just let it pass without notice … but to my surprise I received 250 e-mailed birthday wishes that day.
“‘A little bearded birdie told me,’” the e-mailers confessed.
An excerpt from Stephen Covey’s ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’
Habit 7: Sharpen the Saw, Principles of Balanced Self-Renewal focuses on our need for balance and renewal in “the four dimensions of [our] nature — physical, spiritual, mental and social/emotional. … It’s preserving and enhancing the greatest asset you have — you.”
Covey proves his point with this story:
“Suppose you were to come upon someone in the woods working feverishly to saw down a tree.
‘What are you doing?’ you ask.
‘Can’t you see?’ comes the impatient reply. ‘I’m sawing down this tree.’
‘You look exhausted!’ you exclaim. ‘How long have you been at it?’
‘Over five hours,’ he returns, ‘and I’m beat! This is hard work.’
‘Well, why don’t you take a break for a few minutes and sharpen that saw?’ you inquire. ‘I’m sure it would go a lot faster.’
‘I don’t have time to sharpen the saw,’ the man says emphatically. ‘I’m too busy sawing!’”
From the readers…
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Betty Baggott
Montgomery, Ala.
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Mobile, Ala.
The concept of pacing ourselves and balance has been nonexistent since the tornadoes hit April 27, and that is understandable. But we should now try to care for ourselves again and work to avoid compassion fatigue — emotional and physical exhaustion from excessive caring for people in distress. Stay tuned for more on this topic.
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