Perspective

So, it all started with a errant gray hair. Or maybe it was the dry skin. No, no, it was most certainly turning 30.

I've been feeling a little, uhmm, old. I guess, feeling is the wrong word. More correctly, I feel like I look old. The skin on my hands seems to have aged 10 years in the last 9 months and it looks much younger than the skin on my face. I do have a few gray hairs that like to curl and stick up in my part. (and now I'm blabbing to the world about something I told Bryan he would never see on me...I said I would be 90 and still dying my hair :) I have permanent wrinkles on my forehead and around my eyes. Even the skin in my neck/jaw region seems to feel awfully loose these days.

Quite honestly, it's bothersome. I don't want to look old. I want to look young and vibrant. But, why?

Well, because old people get sick and eventually die. I want to live forever and see my grandchildren's great-grandchildren have babies.

But, I read today in Paul's 2nd letter to the Corinthians, "Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day." This time on earth, spent in my outward body, is preparing me for an eternity, spent in my inward spirit, praising my Creator.

That gives me hope. It makes the wrinkles futile. Maybe even vain. (Ouch!) After all, "charm is deceitful and beauty is vain. But a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised."

Now that is what I really want. I really want to be a God-fearing example of a woman to my daughters. I really want to meditate on "...whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report" and are of "any virtue" and "anything praiseworthy". I really want to "...pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness."

But, these don't always happen. So many times I fall short.

Then there is GRACE.

And perserverance.