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SERVING ON THE SUNSET CRUISE

The Lord guides a woman safely in the way she should go and is pleased with her conduct.

If she fails, she will not stay down, because the Lord will help her.

Psalm 37: 33-34

I found these words encouraging and comforting when at the age of 54, I was confronted with a life changing event. God was guiding and preparing me without my awareness.

About a year before I was to uproot my life, I was sitting in a pew with the other choir members at the Calvary Baptist Church in Clifton, New Jersey. I took a pew attendance card and pen, and prepared to take notes from the pastor's sermon. Instead, I found myself writing an acrostic. My hand might have held the pen, but Someone was writing these letters and words:

CAREER
HOME
AGE
NEW LIFE
GOD
ENERGY AND EXCELLENCE

After the church service, I put the card in my pocketbook, and went home and put it in my desk drawer, not really reading what I had written.

I learned months later that the bank in New Jersey that I had worked for, was merging with a bank in Pittsburgh. The departments that I had managed were to be dissolved. I could either be severed, or I could go to Pittsburgh! Being severed from a job is emotionally threatening. You feel as though you had failed somewhere along the way and that you were being discarded!

I had been in Pittsburgh for a vacation thirty years earlier when I visited my friend Shirley in Sewickley. Pittsburgh was a nice place to visit, but did I want to live there?

My heart was heavy. I was frightened about the future. I prayed and asked God for signs as what I was to do. Everything indicated Pittsburgh!

As I packed and then cleaned out my desk, I came across the acrostic. It was three weeks before the move.

C--- CAREER

I was an Assistance Vice President. I had managed a Legal Section that processed Subpoenas and Summons, as well as, managing two Customer Service phone centers in two different cities. While preparing for the move, I was asked whether I wanted to be in management or not. After thirty-six years, mostly in management positions, I was starting to experience burn-out. Banking as I knew it was changing. I made the decision not to be in management. Subsequently, I took a large pay cut.

Before the news of the merger had come, I was already planning my second career. I had plans of starting that second career when I was sixty-two. I had gone back to school, working on a B.S. in Social and Behavioral Science, with the emphasis on Gerontology. My dreams were to manage a nursing home, or become a Patient Advocate.

The change from a CAREER to a JOB was changing my life!

H---HOME

I had lived thirty-three years in the same house with wonderful family memories of my mother and my sister. (My father had died when I was ten years old and had never lived there.) Now I was moving to Pittsburgh. It had 444 bridges! I have a fear of driving over bridges. To boot, I now live near a very high bridge (over land) which is 1000 feet from my new apartment.

A---AGE

In 1996, I was fifty-four. I had the required 25 years of service at the bank to retire, but not the age. The new merged corporation would not bridge me as they had done with previous and subsequent mergers. I needed the continued employment for health and pension benefits. Wasn't I too old to be making such drastic changes?

Psychologists indicate that moving and changing jobs were in the top five of traumatic life experiences. I was experiencing two traumas in one day!

N---NEW LIFE

A chance to start over! Everyone who knew me, knew my favorite saying, "Been there, done that!" In New Jersey, I was the consummate volunteer, hospital, hospice, community health programs, amateur theatre, trustee of two museums at city and county levels, photography exhibits, and cable television appearances related to my photography. I acted as chaperone to my nieces and nephews field trips for school and scouts. I traveled to Europe or North Africa every year.

When I moved to Bellevue, I was going to hold back for a little while. I needed to take the time to rest my body and mind. I needed restoration.

After a year of rest, I found myself volunteering again. This time it was the National Aviary, WQED Television, and Avalon Public Library. I became involved in mentoring programs for local schools through work.

Ihad always journaled, but with a little more time in my "new life", I wrote meditations now for publication.

G---GOD

God was with me. I was leaving my biological family and my church family. My brother-in-law, Jack, encouraged me to find a church immediately. He said that I needed to be with people just like me. Within two weeks of the move, I found a church, Bellevue Christian Church. Months late, I joined the choir, attended a Care/Bible Study group, taught a class of senior citizens, and am now serving on the Church Council.

All of these were needed in my new life. I was learning that nothing in life is permanent, and that God was the only constant.

E---ENERGY AND EXCELLENCE

I was going to need some superhuman energy to pack 102 boxes of possessions and eliminate furniture from living 33 years in one place. I was also downsizing from four rooms to three rooms. I was working that last day of employment in New Jersey, and moving that same day!

My energy finally gave out. My sister had to come over to help me clean and close down the apartment. Dottie and I needed to have this final time together. Not even her marriage and five children had separated us. We were best friends. Now, for the first time in our lives, we would be geographically separated by 400 miles. We needed to work through the sadness we were both experiencing. Was I making the right move?

Excellence implies doing the best you can do. I did not think that was what God's message to me was. It was more the quality of choices in what I would do for His Glory. I once read that clay in it's wet state is unusable. It needs to be shaped and fired to become useful. Experiences and changes provide the shape and heat in our lives to help us become the useful, beautiful, excellent vessels that God wants us to be.

Psalm 37:25 goes further to say, I was young and now I am old.

Now at the age of nearly sixty-two, I don't look at myself as being old. The generation before me is old!

There are signs that we can see along life's journey to remind us that we are getting older. A fact that we must all face. Physically, we huff and puff! Our hair is turning gray. We prefer to sit than stand. We prefer to watch instead of do. Mentally, we can't remember like we used to. We don't respond like we ought to. we are thinking more about yesterday and tomorrow and less about today. Emotionally, we feel negative, critical, unwanted, and in the way. We are threatened by sound, speed, disease, and financial uncertainty. We often resist the need to adjust and adapt.

As I study HIS WORD, GOD'S patriarchs were among his choicest possessions:

Abraham was far more effective once he grew old and mellow.
Moses wasn't used with any measure of success until he turned eighty.
Samuel was old when GOD led him to establish the school of prophets.
Sarah was in her eighties when she bore Isaac.
Paul was used by GOD during his last days, on his knees and writing words of encouragement in letters to the churches.
John wrote Revelation in his later years.

Yes, growing old has had its difficulties and heartaches.

Using the traveling them, as we age, we have desert experiences. Often we fail to see the lovely oasis here and there in our lives. We especially need to find those lovely places in the latter part of our journey here.

In preparing for this weekend retreat, I learned many things. One of the most important is that GOD has decided to let us live this long. Your age is not a mistake, not an oversight, nor an afterthought.

We need to drink from GOD'S oasis. We have been thirsty a long time!

I have three aunts who have found the oasis in the deser of old age. Their journeys in life (The Sunset Cruise) have been long. They all wear glasses, are gray-haired, and one wears a hearing aid. They were all above average in height, but with age are a little bit shorter.

Yet, in the eighties and nineties, they are filled with faith, and are excited about serving their Lord.

Aunt Clyde, Aunt Alein and Aunt Nella are all widows and mothers. Aunt Clyde has no biological children, but is the model of motherhood to her nieces and nephews.

They are models of those who trust the Lord, and the ideal of the woman I hope to become when I grow old.

Psalm 92:14 says: They will bear fruit in old age; they will stay fresh and green. One translation says, they will be healthy and productive.

As I had mentioned earlier, I work at a bank. I am a Retirement Specialist. Those of you who have IRA accounts know that when you are 70 1/2, IRS requires that you take a Required Minimum Distribution (RMD) annually. One of the IRS schedules we use starts at 70 1/2 and ends at 115+. IRS acknowledges that men and women in America are going to live as long as the Bible says that they are going to!

Genesis: 6:3: His days will be 120 years.

Psalm 30: 11-12:

You have changed my sadness into a joyful dance;
You have taken off my cloak of mourning
And given me clothes of joy.
I will not be silent, I will sing praise to you.
Lord, you are my God, I will give you thanks forever.

My aunts could have hibernated in their homes when they lost their life partners. They did not!

AUNT CLYDE

Aunt Clyde is the baby sister of Aunt Alein. She will be eighty-seven in the fall. Aunt Clyde has many talents. She is especially known for her cooking and sewing. She bakes a cake for Sunday Brunch after the church services on Sunday morning. She bakes her cakes from scratch! She makes tomato pickles, strawberry-rhubarb jam, and heavenly jam to sell for the benefit of Missions. Aunt Clyde also cooks for the work crews at her church who are donating their time to repair and renovate the church.

The policy at the Calvary Baptist Church in Clifton, was that any monies used in the church budget was to come from offerings and bank investments. The young people at church needed money to fund their programs, but there was little money in the budget. Aunt Clyde went to the Board of Deacons on behalf of the young people, and asked that they allow her to organize a Craft and Treasure Fair. All the profits would go to the youth program. They voted in agreement. She, like Aunt Alein, is sincere and pretty convincing!

She is on the Board of Trustees at her church, as well, as the Financial Secretary, Aunt Clyde is also Treasurer of the Missions Society. She counts the offering every Sunday after church. She even teaches Sunday School when needed or when she feels that GOD has put a burden on her heart. Calvary currently does not have a church secretary. She will then call members to arrange meetings. Since she knows the church's members so well, the Pastor will often consult her or ask her advice.

Aunt Clyde drives elderly church members to the doctor, hospital and food shopping. She also does mending for a missionary friend in New York City. She is involved in an AIDS project in Manhattan which is to supply presents to AIDS patients who are in Manhattan hospitals. She personally wrapped 3,000 presents last year.

Aunt Clyde feels that GOD expects her to use all the gifts that HE has given her. And she does!

I'm asking GOD for one thing, only one thing.
To live with Him in His House, my whole life long.
I'll contemplate this beauty: I'll study as His feet.

Psalm 27:4

AUNT ALEIN

Aunt Alein will be 95 in July. We will be honoring her at the Family Reunion in Pinson, Alabama in June. She is the mother of three children. She owns 44 acres of land, on which she has a very large garden. When she was ninety, she asked for a wheel barrow for her birthday! She cans and eats vegetables grown from her garden all year. She is a vegetarian. Aunt Alein still cooks and contributes to all the family dinners and to the reunions. Her fried okra is to die for! She also prepares meals for sick church members and neighbors. She walks at least a mile a day.

Aunt Alein receives Social Security, is frugal and manages her own finances. The Lord has laid upon her a passion for Missions. Since she has no extra money of her own to give to the building of hospitals or to the feeding of starving children around the world, she has found a unique way to give to Missions. She buys dishtowels on sale. She sends them to NJ for my Aunt Clyde (her sister who is almost eighty-seven) to cut, sew and knit handles on them. Aunt Clyde completes them and mails them back to Aunt Alein in Alabama. When she first started this project, she took the towels and stood in front of the Super Walmart near Pinson to sell them. She sold quite a few. However, the manager of the store came out and advised her that she could no longer sell them there. Aunt Alein was not discouraged. She moved on to K-Mart! She is a convincing salesperson. Her towels were really selling! She usually sells thirty or so at a time. The manager of the K-Mart came to chase her away, too! Aunt Alein explained why she was doing this, that it was not for her, but for people who are in need. The manager bought three towels, and gave her permission to sell in front of K-Mart anytime she wanted to!

Aunt Alein is a Seventh-Day Adventist. She enjoys going to church in the Sabbath. She watches very little television and when she does, she prefers to watch the Adventist programs. It was through her church that she became aware of the needs of those in far away places. Aunt Alein is also especially sensitive to those who are sick and alone. Before she retired she worked in a Seventh Day nursing home. She saw first hand how the church is helping those who are unfortunate and ill.

She asked for life, and You gave it;
A long and lasting life.

Psalm 21:4

AUNT NELLA

Aunt Nella is the youngest of the trio. She will be eighty-one in August. She is the sister-in-law to Aunt Clyde and my father's youngest sister.

She is a convert to Catholicism and attends mass every Sunday, and other times, too. She uses her gifts in a practical way, too. Aunt Nella feels that some days she lives in her car! She takes neighbors to church, food shopping or errands.

Aunt Nella is a wonderful cook. She, too, cooks for the family, and does all the holiday cooking for her family. She is a terrifica baker. She recently told me that she has been inviting one of her parish priests to have lunch at her home. She said that priests can be lonely, too, because they are away from their families.

Aunt Nella's life has not been easy. Her oldest daughter, Patty, who lives in Florida has both breast and an aggressive brain cancer. Aunt Nella flies down often to be with her and to care for her.

Her son-in-law recently died of a very painful cancer. She did all the cooking, washing, and ironing and caretaking of his family while my cousin, Chris (his wife), worked to help support the family. She sat with him and listened to his fears, complaints, cries, and please for help and healing.

Aunt Nella loves to travel and especially enjoys going on trips with her senior citizens group.

It was through Aunt Nella that I met Mother Teresa. My cousin, Sister Miriam Agnes, was a nun in one of Mother's houses in the Fort Apache section of the Bronx. One Sunday when we visited her there, she advised that Mother was sleeping. My Aunt Nella, Uncle Vinnie, and my cousin had our visit in a very small room. A few minutes later, a little wrinkled nun with large work worn hands, walked in and sat down next to me. She constantly stroked my hair, hands, and arms. When she left the room, she kissed all of use. Three weeks later I learned that she was Mother Teresa of Calcutta when she won the Nobel Peace Prize

Thank You! Everything in me says, "Thank You!"
Angels listen as I sing my thanks!

Psalm 138:1

You may have noticed that the initials from my aunts' first names spell ---CAN! They exemplify the true meaning of the word--- to do, make or accomplish. Each day they do all that they can.

Each one of my aunts have had many birthdays. GOD brings us birthdays not as deadlines, but lifelines. If GOD has given you another year to live for HIM, HE has some things in mind. HE has some very special plans to pull off through your life. It includes more than existing 1,440 minutes a day. Sometimes, GOD asks us to be faithful to the small obscure tasks that few people ever see.

As we celebrate our birthdays aboard Life's Sunset Cruise, Psalm 90:12 comes to mind:

So teach us to remember our days
that we may present to THEE a heart of wisdom.

Prayer:

LORD, you don't want a lonely old age for any of use. We ask that YOU always have us to learn, to be curious, and to be young in spirit.

FATHER, when we trust in YOU, we are like trees planed beside the water, whose leaves remain green. We think we would like to grow old YOUR way.

Whatever our age, LORD, teach us to appreciate our elders and the beauty of their wrinkled faces.

Help us to use each hour with a grateful heart. Amen