I like celebrating anything and everything. After all, who doesn’t like party time?
Thinking along this line it occurred to me this month I’ll be celebrating my birthday. I pondered this for a while and was trying to figure out which birthday I should celebrate.
After all, if it’s my birthday, I should be the one to choose which birthday to celebrate. I’m thinking, for example, that this year I’ll celebrate my 16th birthday.
On my 16th birthday, I wasn’t in a state to really celebrate it to its fullest. My only concern at that time was I’m old enough to get a driver’s license. That’s the only thing I was even thinking about.
So, this year, I might just celebrate my 16th birthday.
Then I think of my 21st birthday. I didn’t do very much to celebrate that birthday then. I was just so excited to become an official adult that nothing else really mattered.
I didn’t have to get my parents’ permission to do anything. Boy, that was a great day in my life.
The other morning, I was shaving in the bathroom. As I looked in the mirror, I gasped. Is that my grandfather in the mirror? Or, have I become my grandfather?
The other day I was in the shopping mall with The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage, wife Martha. When we’re there, she usually goes one way, and I go to the coffee shop to get coffee.
As I was walking to the coffee shop, a bunch of young boys looked at me and started laughing. Finally, one of them said, “Hey, grandpa. Where’s your cane?” And then, in hysterical laughter, they ran away from me.
They can be very thankful I didn’t have a cane at that time or I’d have put it to good use, if you get my drift.
Several years ago Martha and I celebrated our birthdays — which are only two days apart — on the same day at a nice restaurant.
When the waitress approached our table, Martha mentioned we were celebrating our birthdays.
The waitress, trying to be funny, looked at me and said, “So, what does it feel like to be older?”
I smiled at her. Then, I reached across the table and gently squeezed my wife’s arm. I looked at the waitress and said, “It feels rather good.”“ The only thing that really concerns me about getting old is on top of my head. Every year a significant number of hairs retire and go on vacation never to be seen again. I do have more hair today than I did when I was born, if that means anything.
Another thing is, the older I get the more my brown hair has been replaced with grey hair. Where do these grey hairs come from?
I then read a verse that gave me some comfort.
“The hoary (grey) head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness.”
— Proverbs 16: 31
If this is true, and it is, my grey hair is my “crown of glory” I never thought of that way, but now I’m going to.
The older I get the bigger my “crown of glory.” I’m going to use it to the best of my personal advantage.
Dr. Snyder is a former pastor who lives with the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage, wife Martha, in Ocala, Fla. His email is [email protected].
