I am really feeling my age these days.
Not so much because of the stiffness I feel in my joints or the loss of dexterity or because I lose my balance more frequently or because I forget things more easily now or because I can no longer drive a golf ball well over two hundred yards anymore.
The other day I attempted to dribble a basketball in order to impress my grandson that I still had it.
Big mistake. He laughed. I groaned.
And I won’t mention the amount of medications I now have to take both in the morning and in the evening.
Big Pharm loves me.
Unfortunately these are all signs of my body breaking down neurologically and physically; I know this is normal for someone approaching seventy years of age, I don't like it at all. But who does?
As a friend of mine once quipped:
“If I knew I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself.” But of course we never think about getting old when we are young, do we?
Yet I knew I was in trouble with this aging thing when my doctor politely warned me recently against the dangers of falling. He told me:
“Falling can lead to unpleasant consequences.”
He was quick to point out however that his warning had nothing to do with me being old. He was just being tactful of course but he was also lying through his teeth.
Okay everybody grows old and aging is far better than the alternative, right? But there is something about aging that is is really painful, even more than the aches and pains that come along with growing old:
The longer we live the more of our friends we will lose to the inevitable.
Just the other day a Facebook friend of mine lamented over the sudden death of his college friend. I realized something foreboding in his post:
As we grow older we will lose more and more of our friends and the pain of those losses will compound over time.
Somewhere in the Bible we are told that God promises us at least three score and ten years of life. That’s 70 years old. I’m almost there. But some of my friends and old school mates were not so fortunate. In fact in my high school class of 41 six have already expired.
I miss them. I knew them. I shared life with them, We had the same teachers. We had things in common. But I am now living with the knowledge of knowing that I will never see them in this life again. This is a painful thought.
So what is my point?
My point is that our friends are way too valuable to discard as if they are disposable diapers or razors.
We may lose our friends to death but we should never lose a friend over the issue of being right, no matter how righteous we think our position is.
Our friends are not always going to be with us. I know, we don't think about these kinds of things when we are young, but just wait my friend.
2016 has been a tough year on everyone’s friendships. No need to elaborate because we all know why this past year has been tough.
Perhaps we might reevaluate our own personal positions in order to protect our friendships. Friends are way more important than one’s politics, or ideology, or who's right or who's wrong.
Life is not forever.
Being right should never take priority over being gracious. The loss of a friend is both tragic and sad. Mend fences. Reach out. Be gracious and learn to forgive.
Being right isn't that big of a deal; being gracious is.
Friends are worth having and keeping. Our relationships with all our friends are worth preserving no matter the personal cost to us.
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