getting older

Several years before my dad passed away, I remember him saying that he daily reflected that it could be his last day. I knew that this had come about because of some recent health issues he had had, but I didn't quite know what to say. As so frequently happens, God put words into my mouth: "Well, dad, that's a fact that we all face." He muttered that sometimes something brings it from the back of our minds to the front.

I was reminded of this tonight as I sat at my house, trying to get warm. I have my feet on a heating pad--I especially have trouble getting and keeping my feet warm these days, along with lower legs and hands. I figure that perhaps this is an artifact of diabetes, with which I was diagnosed a little over a year ago. Now, I don't dwell on death because of this or for any other reason, but as I sit here aching and trying to get comfortable, it occurs to me that like everything else in this life, I need to think properly about the aches, pains, and changes in my body that seem to increase as I get older. Thinking properly in this case means knowing that these aches and discomforts are among the "various trials" spoken of in 1 Peter 1:6 (read it in context here.) I won't let them keep me from bearing fruit for the Lord by serving people according to whatever opportunity he opens before me.

Jesus defeated death--not only physical death, through his resurrection, but also spiritual death (separation from God,) when he accomplished reconciliation at the cross. As Dwight L. Moody said,

The valley of the shadow of death holds no darkness for the child of God. There must be light, else there could be no shadow. Jesus is the light. He has overcome death.