my upcoming birthday

Don’t be selfish; don’t try to impress others. Be humble, thinking of others as better than yourselves. Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too. (Philippians 2:3-4)

I was just talking to someone on Facebook about my upcoming birthday. 62 years old. It is truly hard to envision myself that age, yet I am. In spades.

I feel it too. Especially in the changing of the weather. My arthritis is speaking up. It started a few years ago and is beginning to come out in a large measure.

62 years is a fairly long time. Twelve presidents in that time. Music underwent a total revolution in my lifetime, as did society in general. A lot of things happened, and not that many for the better.

At the risk of sounding like old people always have, the world into which I was born was a lot better world than the one I live in now. The older I get, the more raw and rough our society becomes.

But 62 years old. That means my wife is 60. I still think of her in her 20’s or maybe 30’s. and I tend to think of myself in my 30’s or 40’s. But I am not. And I feel every year of my age today.

I am not sure I like what I have become. I guess most men say that, or at least a lot of them do. Things happened when I was younger that I should have turned left instead of turning right at. There were places in time that I took the wrong road. And I wish I could change it.

I did take the road less traveled, as Robert Frost wrote. I became a minister. There really are not a lot of those. In the denomination in which I started, most ministers quit before they get in their 50’s anyway, so I have outlasted most of them. Of course, I left that denomination when I was in my mid forties so I suppose it doesn’t count.

The denominations I came into had a lot of older pastors which was encouraging at the time. Again, of course, I found out that so many of them were not doing well in their older age.

And I am not. We are broke and homeless right now, living with my daughter, counting pennies. It is not what I thought I would be doing at this age. So many others are retiring now. I, on the other hand, am just about burned out and don’t really know where I am going or what I will do with the rest of my life.

It would not be so hard, I suppose, if it were not for the depression it engenders.

Someone the other night at the ladies meeting mentioned my desire to help people, to feed people, that it seemed to be a ministry of mine. In the last two churches, both of which I was at briefly, the church had no desire for that. They expected me to do what they wanted and to keep up Pentecostalism and the style it demanded in their minds.

I didn’t and was thrown away. And I sit here on this life refuse heap like Job wondering what is next, what will happen to me, to us, how we will live. I look around every day trying to figure out what I can sell, but I have little or nothing to sell. We drive a broken down vehicle, and live in a borrowed bedroom.

It is not hard in this situation to think of others as better than me. They are. In fact, most are.

My wife loves me and for that I am grateful. She lives where I am and is with me.

I suppose God is with me, although he has not shown himself to me in a while. He surely made a lot of promises when I was younger that so far have not come to pass. That is, of course, if they were promises and not just wishful thinking on my part.

I sure am tired. I sleep a lot.

God be praised in all his glory. Let your glory shine on me. Touch me with your grace and your glory and let me feel your presence. Please.