Years ago when our 4 children were very young I came across this book. I do not remember if I checked it out at the public library or if someone loaned it to me but it changed my life. I do not like to read at all so it seems strange that I would read this book and also that I am becoming a writer.

Here is an Amazon review about this book:

I borrowed this book many years ago when my children were very young and my husband was in the military and we were moving overseas. I got so much encouragement out of it that I hated to return it! Well, now my children are grown and I am taking a job in Alaska and life is changing AGAIN, and I remembered how much that book and what the author had written had really spoke to me and encouraged me. So I had to order a copy of my own! I too will share it after reading it again! She covers change points that we all face from being young to growing old and does it very well! I would recommend this book to anyone who is struggling with the changes life brings!

I just remember how much reading this book changed my outlook on my life and I was probably only able to associate with the beginning of the book as I had not lived nor walked this path of life very long at that time.

I would love to go back now and reread this book and I will probably do that very soon. I saw a picture today from my very favorite photographer of the Smoky Mountains and it got me to thinking back about this book and the different chapters of my life.

Here is the picture:

The photographer is Deb Campbell and she is awesome! She entitled this print, Fire and Ice.

I saw the picture and immediately related it to myself. Right now I am still fire in my physical body and my mind but I can see the ice right up the road. I want to stay in the part of the road where I am right now for a long time but as you see in this print I am very soon nearing the cold part.

Old age is something we all have to face if we live long enough. Time passes by so very quickly!

This weekend our youngest son and his two babies stayed overnight with us as Mommy had to work and Saturday morning I got up and bustled around and was seeing to the toddler in the high chair and trying to make biscuits and gravy. I thought I had accomplished my feat pretty well until my son said that he found one of my gray hairs in his gravy. I was devastated to say the least and remember thinking that only old people drop hairs in the food. I am laughing to myself now as I write this but that is exactly what I was thinking.

I have lived through many many chapters of life now and have outlived one of my precious sons. He resides as a memorial in many places throughout my home but especially here in my kitchen where I tend to be a lot of the time.

The Bible says this about aging:

Proverbs 20:29 (KJV)

“The glory of young men is their strength: and the beauty of old Men is the gray head.”

When my hair first began to turn gray I used to dye it but it became increasingly more frequent and thus more expensive to keep doing this and also my hairdresser at the time told me that hair was really wanting to be gray. One day I just thought to myself that if my hair wanted to be gray that badly then I would just let it. Ha! Plus by this time I had read this verse:

Proverbs 16:31 (ESV)

Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.

I never felt bad about my hair after that!

We walk through many chapters in our lives and when one chapter closes we cannot go back. I remember when I walked out of the chapter of child bearing years how hurt and sad that I felt. One of the very worst chapters of my life was when my youngest child left home. My coworkers even made fun of me during this time because I was so down in the dumps. I explained to them that our son had never even talked about going into the military like his Dad and older brother and then one day he calls me up after working the summer after his high school graduation and says that he does not want to go to college at this stage of his life and thinks he will join the Air Force. I almost dropped the phone in his ear. He asked me if I was not happy for him and I just said that I hadn’t expected him to leave so soon as he was still living at home. He said we would talk that night when he returned home. We sat up until 3 am talking about it all and even though I was not ready I gave him my blessing.

After he left, the house was so quiet and lonely and my husband and I had to reconnect all over again, plus I felt like someone had this gigantic rubber stamp and was stamping me in the forehead continually and the stamp said:

YOU ARE OLD!

I am past all of that empty nest syndrome now as our house is sometimes overwhelmingly full of children, in-laws, grandchildren and pets. I remember one Christmas after the last group left and Mark closed the door he looked at me and said, Never again, we will rent Standing Stone State Park next time. He didn’t really mean it of course!

We are both retired now and we love it! We can enjoy life and be participants in whatever activity is going on in our family’s lives at the time. We babysit a lot and it gives us a chance to do a do-over in a lot of areas and that is good too.

We laugh a lot about our aches and pains and how we creak each morning as we get out of bed. He snores, I am hot natured and he is cold natured, I like mayonaise and he loves mustard. We grumble and growl and I call him Archie Bunker sometimes and he says I drive like Mrs. MaGoo but life is really good for us and we enjoy being our old selves.

I see the cold icy road ahead of us like in the picture but I pray that we will continue to laugh at ourselves and enjoy that part of the journey too and enter that last chapter of our lives with Joy and encouragement for others that walk behind us a ways!

As the book Change Points encouraged me years ago, I hope my words have encouraged you tonight.

Love and Blessings!