Turning Seventy

On a cold Iowa winter day 70 years ago at 2:47 p.m. on December 23rd, Tom and Alice Gail Sawyer gave birth to 7 lb. 4 oz. me.

People rarely can guess my real age. It’s always a few years shy. I’ve never figured that out. “You don’t look XX, ” they say. A few close friends remind me I certainly don’t act XX either. I might if I ever grow up.

A blogger with so many birthdays might be inclined to write a summary of the highs and lows. The milestones or the kidney stones of life.  Not for me.

God has allowed me to reach this decade with the promise and hope that the best years of my life are yet to come. So, I don’t regret turning 70. I don’t want to have a mid-life late-in-life crisis. I don’t want to receive senior living junk mail (How do they find out how old we are anyway?) I don’t want help managing my retirement account. I don’t want to wear Depends. I don’t want a home health nurse wheeling me around the neighborhood. I don’t want to start eating prunes and start avoiding cheeseburgers and chocolate. I hate Metamucil. My ears don’t like rock concerts or stadium crowds (You have to navigate all those stairs.).  I don’t want my conversations with friends to be about our medications and our bowel movements.

What I want is to love and serve and nurture my family. I want to continue pursuing God and surrendering to His will rather than pushing my own. I want to cultivate lots of personal and intimate relationships with my church friends, my neighbors and other folks from all cultures and walks of life God puts in my path to love.

And I want Santa to bring me a new computer.

Happy 70th birthday to me.