As my friend Roy said, "It's no disgrace to get old, it's just unhandy." Arriving at my 70th year came as no surprise to me, having worked on it for 69 years. Considering the alternative, how great it is to have made it! What is so surprising is how swiftly I have reached this supposedly tottering age. Comfort may be found in the fact that by the year 2000 there will be about 34,000,000 others aged 65 or older in our country. We are all survivors of world wars, the Depression, recessions, rock and roll, Elvis, and the Beatles. We survived our teenage years and those of our children, too. Now we are weathering the years of our grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

What has my age brought me? Legal blindness from some unknown cause, hardness of hearing from childhood ear infections, arthritis from causes unknown, and an impaired sense of balance from all of the above. Ah yes, there are physical changes. Ecclesiastes 12 is so very real in so many different ways. "But I have good news for you," as Gabriel Heatter used to say in his evening broadcast during the Depression. Read on and find out – you may need to know sooner than you think.

The God of Our Aging⤒🔗

In 1988 my mind was unaccountably mulling over Psalm 31:15 (KJV) – "My times are in thy hand" – for a full year. I thought of it off and on, considering the profound theological themes. Then on December 26 I lost my sight. The world became almost totally dark. The sense of loss and grief was very real. Determining not to become an emotional basket case, and not wanting to burden my wife and family with my sudden limitation of mobility, I sought the reclining chair to think, pray, and meditate.

Sounds great. What was also happening was that depression was taking the form of physical fatigue. I should have realized this, having taught for many years the significance of the holistic approach to life, integrating the physical, mental, and emotional aspects of our being from a spiritual perspective. Now began the dreaded correspondence from "Arthur.” Arthur writes to many under stress, and I was numbered among its victims. Walking increasingly hurt and hiking was a thing of the past, as were reading, driving, seeing people's faces, or hurrying up and down the steps. Suddenly, I was practicing the lifestyle of the visually handicapped. "What a revolting development," as Jimmy Durante used to say.

But still the verse came to me again and again, with all its comforting assurance. "My times are in thy hand." Now I was learning more than just the theological verities in practicing grace day by day. This experience had come from my loving heavenly Father, who, in his totality of attributes and characteristics had reserved this event for me in my late sixties. It forced the compete revision of all our retirement plans. At least the loss of sight prevented us from making a financial investment in some form of camping vehicle. Our plans for many years to travel and see God's world, perhaps doing some chaplaincy work in campgrounds along the way, were now over. We had invested years ago in a camp membership for retirement use. "My times are in thy hand" came back to me again and again, and through that truth great peace and lasting joy came as the gift that nothing can take away, taint, or diminish.

In over fifty years of preaching, I increasingly rejoiced in the sovereignty of God in all the affairs of men, nature, and nations. Now came the time to taste and practice the fruit of the Spirit. Now was the time to grow in the reality of knowing that his great arms were underneath my load of disappointment, grief, and loss.

Don't misunderstand me. I would love to regain my sight and my hearing and get rid of the arthritis in my hips. God can do these things if that, too, is his gracious will. But as God is my witness, I would rather have his gifts of grace and mercy than to have my lost faculties back. This peace does not make me some sort of super saint. God has been good to visit me as he has, and this underlines how much the past is prologue to the future.

The Guide for Our Aging←⤒🔗

If my times are in God's hand, then so are my places and conditions of life. I laughed the first night I lost my sight. Try squeezing toothpaste on your brush with your eyes shut. Toothpaste was everywhere, silent and sticky. What a mess! Laughter is great. One of God's most gracious gifts to us is a sense of humour. Mine has led me into foot-in-mouth disease many times. But when God is taking you through the valleys, how good is it to laugh when nothing else seems to help. Yes, I laughed and my wonderful wife knew I was still normal.

But more than common grace is needed. I desperately need to be aware of the presence of the Lord day by day. Now time is spent in meditation on what I have learned and been taught. Yes, God's Word of truth is the vehicle that the Spirit uses in dealing with, his saints who are bewildered, battered, and beleaguered.

But we are also blessed and shouldn't forget it. I remember much Scripture, but more should have been memorized. I can sing out on most of the first verses of hymns, but my memory grows faulty on others. Hymnals are produced for people with normal sight, not for the visually impaired. Trying to find the men's room in a strange church is an unforgettable journey. On and on go the descriptions of the new lifestyle. When greeting people in church, many have been the times I have mixed up couples in saintly wife-swapping. Women should never change their hair style without telling me first! So it goes when you try to continue ministering in a meaningful way.

Now has come retirement from full ministerial duties. Actually, the term "retoolment" is more appropriate for the years that may remain. I simply cannot turn away from over fifty years of service in Christ's kingdom. Nor do I want to be regarded as a relic of the past whose brain has ossified. My vital interest continues in the church, both local and denominational. The burden continues for the life, witness, and problems of the church. There are practical ways in which to show this continuing interest. Financial support, though diminished by income, must continue. Prayer support must increase as other activities and demands are laid aside.

There are new forms of activity in which to engage. I can engage in specific tasks hitherto left undone – befriending, counselling, telephoning, encouraging, working with my hands, etc. My concern for the life, work, and witness of the church may involve me in community activity and citizen responsibilities never attempted before. There are many new forms of witness and productivity that will be opening up in our new community. In my retoolment, I hope to continue to fill the pulpit effectively, communicate my faith fervently, and live consistently as a simple redeemed sinner who has had the great blessing of knowing our Lord for many years.

As we look toward the future, we know that God is preparing a heavenly place for us. Retirement is usually the next to last rite of passage. But then, as one of my former students at Reformed Theological Seminary said, as he struggled with, cancer, "We are all terminal." God has promised a heavenly dwelling – it is just the dying that may be viewed with some degree of apprehension. But God will walk with us through that valley even as he has through many other valleys.

As my wife and I wait for our new retirement home to be readied in Penney Retirement Centre in Florida, we know that our Savoir has said that he knows us by name, calls us to himself, puts us forth, and leads us out, going before us. He has a job for us to do in our new setting–we just don't know what it will be. Right now, our job is to show patience as our retirement home is slowly made ready.

We hope to minister as we have for years – showing hospitality, preaching, counselling, just living and walking before God's people and unbelievers as well. Even in a "Christian community," not all may know our Lord. And what about the maintenance people? Will the nursing centre be needed at the end or even before the end? Will either of us need help in the Alzheimer’s care facility? Only our Lord knows. Here he is, leading us where we can afford the cost, have fellowship, and be what God wants us to be.

Yes, our times and places are in the Lord's hand. This gives us hope, help, and dignity. As we get older, more and more degrees of independence are bid farewell. Really, though, there was too much of that anyway. I learn more and more to depend upon God, seek daily wisdom, and pursue daily grace – hoping not to become a crotchety old man.

More and more I see the wisdom of the immortal words of Robert Browning, "Come, grow old with me, the best is yet to be." And with God as our companion and guide, our reason for living, and our hope in death, there are exciting days ahead. Let's get on with it! There is more living to do and a better person to become in the ever-growing vineyard of the kingdom of God.