Aging

Retirement in 3 Chapters

/ pastorpete51 / 2 Comments

Just 6 months ago my wife and I decided to finally make the decision to retire and move to Florida. She had finished her chemotherapy and was recovering her strength. The sale of our business was finalized and the transition completed. Even our kids and grandkids were urging us to make the plunge. Everything seemed so right and we moved ahead with as much enthusiasm as we could towards a new and uncertain future. For the benefit of anyone in our position or who are thinking about retirement here are three chapters we have passed through. Some days have been great and some have been stressed and even traumatic.

Chapter One… Wahoo we’re in Florida! No more ice..no more snow…no more 4-5 long colorless months of barren cold landscapes!!

Chapter Two…oh noooo we’re in Florida! It’s 1200 miles to the nearest friend or family. Everybody seems to be trying to sell us something and the water tastes like someone washed their gym socks in it!

Chapter Three… Oh I see -God has been in Florida long before we came. He knows all the answers and has called this new place our home!

The Price of the Gospel

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I am thankful that God has opened a new door this week in a memory care wing of a faculty we have been visiting for a while. For those of you who think this is a pointless exercise I would like to encourage you to get involved if you can. Alzheimer’s and dementia effect a small but significant portion of our nursing home community residents. But while memories become spotty the value of the person remains unchanged to our Heavenly Father. We have discovered that love and music in combination can communicate quite effectively the love of Christ!

 

Honoring our Parents

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What is honor and what does it mean to honor our parents? One way I have come to understand it is that honor is a combination in equal parts of love and respect. Honoring our parents means we can not love without respect and we should never respect without loving.

Every week as I visit nursing homes I see the results of a culture that has often forgotten how to honor its mothers and fathers. and has abandoned it’s parents.

Yes they are professionally cared for. Yes they are clean and well fed, but they mostly spend their days alone. Though we may be honoring our own parents, God is also calling on us to hear the cry of the forgotten ones. On January 18th hundreds of thousands reminded our nation about the value of the unborn. Today we need many more among God’s people to also remember those left alone in institutions. God doesn’t forget a single sparrow. If we forget these mothers and fathers we have forgotten the heart of God.