I’ve noticed some changes as I’ve gotten older.  I’m not old by a long stretch, but my age is no longer a matter of complete indifference either.  Years of sedentary work without a discipline of physical exercise have resulted in a loss of strength and agility.  I never did move gracefully, but the ravages of time have made my gate look more like the lumbering of a bear than a human stride.

I will spare you, dear reader, from a recital of the indignities aging has visited upon my corpus.  You’ll not be forced to keep count of the number of times my sleep is disturbed by trips to the bathroom or any of the rest.  Those of you who are older know all about this and more.  Those who are younger may as well find out about these things by surprise like the rest of us.

It is a surprise to get older.  The passage of years and the evidence of those years on our bodies often is met by a kind of confusion.  How could I look this old and still feel as unsure of myself as my first day in Junior High?  I expected to be more grown up, wiser, more confident at this age.  It’s looking like I may just have to keep pretending to be a grown-up until I die.

It seems I spend more time looking back over my life as I age.  My observations tell me I am hardly alone in that.  Some of our backward glances are born of nostalgia for an imagined past that never was quite as rosy as we recount.  Sometimes we look back to brag – to ourselves or others – about our “glory days.”  (Cue Bruce Springsteen’s classic tune.)  I suspect we tell our stories (sometimes only to ourselves) for the same reason people carve their names into a tree trunk – to say, ‘I was here.  I shaped the world.  I made history in my own small way.’

Christians and Jews have beliefs that you can talk about in simple declarative statements like: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord.”  (Deut. 6:4)  But for the most part, Jewish and Christian theology is narrative.  It is a story of how God has been encountered and experienced in the community gathered in God’s name.  If someone asks what we believe, we start telling a story about deliverance from slavery in Egypt, or a cross and an empty tomb.

Our personal reminiscences need not, indeed should not, be nostalgic revisionist history.  Our memories don’t have to be filtered for just our successes or to reveal only our most painful mistakes and missteps.  Instead, they can be the story of where we were met and sustained by God.  When you look back, look in blessing.  Look for the One who brought you through the sea on dry land, who fed you in the desert.

Prayer:  Your faithfulness is written on every page of my history.  I know I can trust you to bring me safely to my story’s end.