Odd, isn't it, how our perceptions change as we age. When I was very small, my brother, who was all of 18 months older, defined "big." When I was in 1st grade, I thought 4th graders were a higher life form, but by the 6th grade I was old enough and wise enough to realize that the new batch of 4th graders were in fact little kids.

My parents surely knew everything there was to know until I was a teenager, when they became clueless practically overnight. I could never imagine them as children, but now it's hard to believe that my own children are parents. My grandparents always seemed old, but now I'm a grandparent myself, and I don't feel old at all. Why should I? My mother-in-law doesn't look or act old to me, and she has great-grandchildren. Age, I'm finding out, is more an attitude than a matter of years.

Robert Browning revealed the secret to aging gracefully when he wrote:

Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be, The last of life, for which the first was made.^[1]

If I'd read that 30 or 20 or even 10 years ago, that wisdom would have been lost on me, but now the prospect of new experiences and perspectives as I grow older excites me. Others around my age who bemoan each birthday and complain about a few wrinkles should take to heart the next lines from Browning's poem:

Our times are in His hand Who saith, "A whole I planned, Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

Faith in God and His loving plan for our lives changes everything. The longer I live in His love and the closer I try to conform to His plan, the surer I am that "the best is yet to be."

Keith Phillips
For Activated

1. Robert Browning, "Rabbi Ben Ezra," 1864