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Much has been written about the biblical principles of sowing and reaping. My understanding of that came from growing up on a farm and seeing how carefully my dad handled the stewardship of the land throughout his lifetime until his death at 84. The winter months were spent planning the crops for spring planting and the rotation of them that would protect the soil. He would also be planning the large garden in a similar fashion as well. By spring the sowing would begin and I recall well his time in the fields doing that. There was also the watchful eye over nutrients and weather that played a significant role in what he would reap. It would be the late summer and early fall when the reaping would begin in both the garden and fields, one crop after another in the season for each. 

I so appreciate the images and understandings of sowing and reaping from living this cycle throughout my childhood and adolescence. They remind me of how applicable they are to how we still sow and reap if we are blessed to enter our seventh decade of life (or beyond). Some may believe that seventh decade usually includes retirement and is a time to relax on the golf course and indulge ourselves in all the things our careers did not allow for. A careful reading of scripture shows something different including how productive some of the greatest heroes in the Bible were well into this decade and beyond.

We may not be as fast as we once were and find we need more time to replenish our energy, but if we are spared any major illnesses or chronic diseases there are many opportunities available to continue sowing into the legacy we will leave for those who come after us. Doing so will also ensure we stay healthier longer even if we are not doing as much as we did in our 50’s or 60’s.

Photo of my mother at 72

The photo above is my mother, 72, dancing with our son (her only grandson) at his wedding even though she had never danced before. She was in the game until much later in her seventh decade of life. She was still on a prayer chain at the church she had been a part of for nearly all of her life, offering to make meals for someone in grief or recovering from surgery, and using creativity in numerous other areas of her life. These were things that had been within her all along but now they began to flower and bloom in ways that working and raising a family had not allowed. 

“We no longer have to wear the old roles that so defined us for so many years. We can be funny and silly and irresponsible for a change. We can buy new things without asking someone for permission to get them. We can even begin to think differently now. And we do!” 

Joan Chittister

The healthiest senior citizens I know are not tired because they are not engaged but because they are fully engaged not simply waiting to die. For me, that was the door that opened to pursue writing which had been a lifelong passion and I had done briefly in other seasons. It was discovering creativity mixed with life experiences and a bit of wisdom tossed in when I began the website 10 years ago. A new way of sowing had begun and I felt more alive than ever.

“The purpose of a job is to make a living, not to make a life. Making a life is something we’re meant to do beyond the role. This is the part of life in which we work at succeeding at all other dimensions of what it means to be alive.” 

Joan Chittister

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A website and writing on it exposed me to people who had never met me and likely never would. What did I want to share with them? How personal should I risk being? 

At the writers’ boot camp I participated in before the website, I heard a lot about finding my voice in writing but I was unsure of what that looked like. Words and phrasing of other authors were appealing to me but they were not my voice. That would take me a while to discover and longer than that to risk developing. Would anyone read what I wrote? Would it have any meaning or encouragement for them? Other experienced bloggers had many hundreds of followers and I had less than 20 at the outset. 

It was then in one of my times of devotion that I sensed the Lord reminding me that what He led me to write and publish on any given day might be for only one person. I was not to look at the numbers (tempting as that might be) or compare myself with anyone else. I wasn’t writing this to achieve fame and no money was involved except what I expended. I was aware I was writing because what had been simmering in me for many years could not be ignored, the passion to write was flaming and I needed to take the risk. I had no idea how often each week or month I would do it or for how many years, only that something had been birthed in me and I needed to be about doing it.

Too many stop sowing in the last decades of their lives, never risk living the life that brought new life from within. Each of our stories matter and how it is reborn or born afresh in the last decades of our life on earth is not to be missed or avoided out of fear. Too many times earlier in our lives we gave in to fear and missed out on joy. That is not what the Lord has for us in this season of both sowing and reaping.

But once the website was launched, what then? How would the Lord lead and what else would I discover as I began to step past 80?

Photo by Pam Ecrement

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The pursuit of success is one most of us join in one way or another. It can be for short term or long-term goals and what we choose can be as individual as our DNA. Even though it is often associated with those who are young, it isn’t limited to any age despite some areas of success being developmental in nature.

Developmental successes get marked early in things like an infant sleeping through the night, learning to sit up, creep, crawl and walk. School brings another common list of what is deemed success as we learn letters, numbers, how to read and do numerical computations and then solve problems.

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What we are exposed and encouraged to and the bent of our interests, talents, and abilities point us to the places and areas where we hope to gain success, but the culture we are a part of plays a role by what it values. Those cultural things can clash with our own ideas of how success is measured. For some cultures the path means pursuing advanced degrees, a growing bank account, and a profitable portfolio. In some cultures it means becoming proficient to join a family business or gain standing in the community in any number of ways including raising the best beef cattle in the area or the largest soybean crop.

But no matter what we choose as our direction or path, we will all face obstacles and setbacks along the way. That’s the way life is. There is rarely a straight line from where we aim to be and where we are. The choice we make because of those things will be the determiner.

Watching our young adult grandchildren brings all these things into focus and reminds us of what we see in our own lives in the rearview mirror.

Some of those we consider to be giants in succeeding remind us of important truths. Thomas Edison is a classic example. He was quoted as saying, “The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time.” In his quest to invent the lightbulb most of us use and appreciate every day, he conducted thousands of experiments. When confronted about these failed attempts he responded, “I have not failed. I have just found 1,000 ways that don’t work.”

Winston Churchill experienced more than a few missteps and failures as well as some modest success before becoming England’s Prime Minister leading his country through WW II. His words on the subject speak volumes: “Success is not final; failure is not fatal; it is the courage to continue that counts.”

Words by men known for greatness (and women as well) challenge each of us when we are trying to gain success. Success for us might be a grade on a test, learning to ride a bike, or running a marathon. What determines that is not only whether culture looks at it as a success but whether we believe that or not. It may be not giving up in physical therapy after an accident, surgery or change of any kind in our health. It might be coping and moving through a loss of someone or something we hold dear and never giving in to despair. 

You can undoubtedly think of any number of things looking at this theme but recently while watching a movie (The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) one line jumped out that relates to all of our seasons and pursuits at any age: “Our measure of success is how we handle disappointment.”

The movie tells the stories of 5 different senior citizens at points in their lives where things have not always worked out the way they hoped or expected. Each is facing a challenge in physical ability, financial success, relational fulfillment, or loss of a dream. Disappointments abound for each as well as for a young man trying to run a hotel where the movie takes place.

We are living in times that leave us hoping for things while doubts assail us due to disappointment in our quests for achievement, people who have let us down and disappointed us, businesses, professionals, schools, and governments who have disappointed us. We may be disappointed in ourselves. But it doesn’t stop there because our disappointment can extend in our faith and how our prayers were or were not answered and whether the answers came on our timetable.

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If that is true and where we are, what we do or choose next will make all the difference (not to mention that in the faith arena it’s clear God measures success differently than we do). None of us can see clearly around the corner to the next scene. We are living life, not playing in a movie. 

Later in the movie quoted above one of the characters says: “All we know about the future is that it will be different or maybe we fear it will be the same.”  Again, we cannot control as much of life as we might wish but our choices about it will determine much about the outcome. 

Thomas Edison, Winston Churchill and a long list of others would remind us of the truth of the words, “The measure of our success is how we handle disappointment.”

Choose wisely.

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It can be tempting to only focus on God’s love, peace, grace, and mercy and forget that He has a long history of raising up men of integrity to be leaders who are also called to be warriors. We may have Joshua come to mind as well as David but the list is longer than that because since the Fall in Eden, the enemy of God has sought to take God’s Kingdom by any and all means including force. The battle for our minds remains a top priority to the present day. He uses all manner of devices to create confusion, fear, and doubt to upend the role we are to have in God’s plan.

Too often as our little boys are growing up we fail to train them for their place as leaders and warriors and it’s not really going to happen by watching video games that distort the reality of real war.

Devotionals have been written for girls of all ages but looking for a devotional for boys to help nurture them to develop integrity and humble leadership tends to be overlooked. Into that reality comes the newly released book by Stacey Pardoe and her two sons, Aiden and Caleb, God’s Warrior: Devotions for Boys Who Want to Grow in Courage and Strength.

This book is a treasure trove of devotions written to speak to a boy’s heart and the challenges he faces in the midst of a culture that muddies the waters on the values that create sound leadership. It is written for boys of all ages but especially those ages 4 through 13. Each devotion starts with a Bible verse and includes a short story about the verse, a few key truths to stand on, a prayer, some questions to discuss, and an action step to help you apply what you read. 

Perhaps the best part is a short section entitled “Words from a Fellow Warrior” taken from interviews of Aiden Pardoe, age 6, and Caleb Pardoe, age 11.

Here is a sample of Aiden’s view at 6 from the devotion entitled “God’s Masterpiece” as it relates to Ephesians 2:10:

“Sometimes, I feel left out when my brother goes off to play with the neighbor and leaves me out. I try to hang out with them and be nice, but they don’t always want me to be with them. I try to remember that God loves me even when I feel left out, but I still don’t like feeling left out!”

Another example in a devotion entitled “Honoring Your Parents,” Caleb, 11, offers these thoughts:

“Sometimes, I feel my parents yell at me for the smallest things. I go to my room even when they don’t tell me to. I try not to yell back at them and show respect when I am angry.”

In a section entitled “Attitude is Everything” based on Philippians 2:14-15, Stacey writes: “Most of us know how it feels to wake up in a grumpy attitude. If we don’t change our perspective right away, a bad attitude can quickly ruin an entire day. Some people don’t realize they have control over their moods, but they do.”  

In the section entitled “Truth to Stand On” in this same devotion, Stacey offers 3 good foundational truths:

• You get to choose your attitude
• Your attitude will determine your thoughts, and your thoughts will guide your life
• People are drawn to other people who have positive attitudes

And then in the section “Let’s Talk About It” that lets the boy in your life interact with you on the topic she asks these great conversation starters: What helps you cheer up when you’re in a bad mood? And then, how do you feel when someone else is in a bad mood? Why is attitude so important?

You may not have a little boy now. Maybe you’re a grandmother enjoying grandsons or you have that boy who drops by to enjoy chatting or nibbling on a cookie with you. If you have the chance to interact with a boy, this book is for you and will not disappoint as you explore the topics and open up conversation that can leave an imprint for the rest of his life.

Caleb, the 11-year-old, gives a glimpse into who he is and is becoming when he says, “Three words to describe me are nice, quiet, and playful. These things might change about me when I get older, but one thing that will never change is that God will always love me. I’ll probably always have blue eyes too.”

God’s Warrior by Stacey, Caleb and Aiden Pardoe is available on Kindle and in soft cover.

We have just had several of those drop-dead gorgeous days we get to experience in October. The mornings have been frosty, inviting me to snuggle under the covers just a few minutes longer. And as the morning has moved forward, the sun has warmed the air just enough. The bluest of skies dotted with a few wispy white clouds coaxes me outside.

The leaves are not yet at their peak of color but are starting to give hints of deeper orange and red to create anticipation in the midst of the yellows, browns, and pale orange hues. These are the days that slip by too quickly and I want to push back the darkness each night to savor just a few more hours of this grand display.

Too soon these days will bring rain and wind. In the blink of an eye the leaves will be stripped from their branches and the long season of barren looking trees will begin. I know that. So, savoring each day before this happens becomes a desire.

Too often our desires meet disappointment, disillusionment, or a dull sense of discontent. As a result, we might choose to deaden those desires that spring from somewhere deep inside us or we search for a way to soothe them causing us to chase what John Eldredge calls “less wild lovers”. These other things that we choose can ultimately lead us into habits and addictions fueling more disappointment and despair.

Somehow, we want more than life as usual. Life as usual doesn’t satisfy this nameless longing fueling our desire.

Perhaps it is that “divine discontent” that Chesterton speaks of in Orthodoxy, that sense that “we have come to the wrong star….We come from somewhere else. We have lost our way.”

C.S. Lewis speaks of our “lifelong nostalgia” to be reunited with our Creator.

In Into Abba’s Arms, Sandra Wilson wrote, “our souls harbor a deep, nameless knowing we were created for something far better, something unmistakably solid and enduring…ancient echoes of Eden.”

Could it be that on beautiful (nearly perfect) days like this in October, we get a momentary glimpse of that kind of beauty we were made to enjoy all the time?

But it isn’t so much the beauty that can satisfy our desire. The beauty points us to the true desire, the One who created the beauty, the One who whispers to us that we were made for something different, something more, something better than even this gloriously beautiful October day can give.

Perhaps that ache in the deepest part of us, that longing and desire in us, is a reminder that He has left as a candle flame to guide us back to Him, to help us find our way back home with Him.

Beauty somehow deepens the tug on our hearts even as other days of despair does. In both cases, we get a sense that something is missing. What we do with that longing and desire will make all the difference!

The longing and desire that we do not name might send us scurrying down side trails so we buy a new dress or other trinket we do not need. We indulge in a fictional romance novel. We drink an extra glass of wine or try to soothe it with a decadent chocolate treat. For the moment, these might mute the desire, but too soon the desire becomes louder again.

The better choice sends us looking for the One who created the desire. We find evidence of Him in heartfelt worship. We see Him in his story, The Word. Those point us to the better path, the true path.

Then when I sit in my favorite red leather chair and I reflect on Him just a few moments longer and let my words to Him pour out on the pages of my journal, I get just a little closer. It gives me a sense of being suspended between the earth and what will be one day a far more fulfilling closeness when nothing can obscure my vision of Him.

It is then that I see clearly what is lost, what is missing. It is what we lost in Eden.

But the desire He left planted within our hearts reminds us of the hope we have of a reunion with Him when every desire will once more be satisfied. Then we will truly be home where we were always created to live.

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As I look out the window or step outside, little by little, bit by bit, the leaves are showing off their autumn finery. It doesn’t happen all at once in our part of the country so when it begins, it is barely noticeable. In our lawn, we know it will be our dogwood first whose leaves will start to tinge red, locust and maples come along next, and last the stately oaks. Each makes its entry onto the stage to show off its own shade and hue of color. Each also drops its leaves at a different time.

Autumn is my favorite time of year as we enjoy the bluest of skies often and the varying temperatures that tend to be not too hot and not too cold, not saturated with humidity, and beyond the busier seasons of readying the house, lawn, garden, and deck for the summer season or winter. 

It is also the season when I met the man I would marry and fell in love with and the season of my birth (October). I love the colored leaves and their crunch under my feet when I am outdoors and the smell of good soup simmering on the stove or a warm apple pie coming out of the oven since it is peak apple season where I live.

Getting older doesn’t happen all at once either. It happens little by little so that we barely notice how quickly time is passing except on special occasions where we get reminded of the year by that event. We discover it is different for each of us as we approach the last quarter of our lives. All we were before and how we responded to those things impact how each of us enters this season.

Photo by Pam Ecrement

Harder still to fathom is to be getting older while still seeming inside to be the same person. Each decade and season has its own opportunities if we are willing to see them. Now we have the time to reflect and consider who we are inside instead of defining ourselves by the public face of what we do.

Therein can be a conundrum.

“Of course I am all the experiences I have ever been, on one level. But on another level, I am only what people see when they look at me now. Finally, I am only what I have prepared myself to be beyond what I did.” 

Joan Chittister

Those who have known us the longest have likely a much broader understanding of all that makes us up versus simply who people see us as at this moment. They may recall when we married, became parents, bought our first home, became grandparents, walked through the aging of our own parents and more. Those we met later on the path have only a partial view of us and what has brought us to this place and season. 

I have had many roles and different experiences before now. I was a Marine Corps officer’s wife, a housewife and mother who stayed at home enjoying that role until our youngest was halfway though elementary school. I was someone who loved writing and wrote articles for our monthly church newsletter then that led to working as a correspondent for a newspaper in the next county for three years and gave me options to use a camera to help tell the stories I wrote. Both were things I loved but were not what my education had taught me to do.

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Next came active local ministry roles in leading various women’s ministry programs for another three years that gave me a chance to grow in my faith and how to reach across denominational lines to bring the body of Christ as women closer together. A very different path followed when my local school district where I had done student teaching asked me to help with a remedial reading program that fit well with the ages of our children and kept me at home without a lot of prep demands for another several years. Then one day I was asked by the superintendent to take the position of a junior high special education class. Even though I had majored in elementary and special education, this was not a position I had planned for my future and yet it seemed like an open door of what became a pattern in my life.

The pattern I speak of was how throughout my life I was asked to take on a role or job or position of one kind or another rather than seeking or applying for it. It seemed that the Lord maybe knew the path He desired me to take and left to my own devices I might muck it all up. 

The special education position was anything but easy, but I cared a lot about these students and taught them for 13 years while doing various ministry things like National Marriage Encounter with my husband and lay counseling in our local church at that time. That combination of things clarified that my love of relational things and people were at the core of me and led me (after my husband) to enter graduate school to become a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and Independent Marriage and Family Therapist in mid-life and leave a tenured teaching position to enter a Christian private practice.

Photo by Pam Ecrement

I was never someone who would call myself a courageous person so each of these transitions challenged me with fears about my ability, competence, endurance, and more. Some thought I was foolish to be leaving a secure teaching position to become part of a private practice where I took an immediate pay cut and lost great less expensive benefits. But part of getting older bit by bit is how we face the fears that can confront us when we step out of one place we know into a new one.

“Fear tempts us to believe life it over – rather than simply changing. A blessing of fear in these years is that it invites us to become the fullness of ourselves.” 

Joan Chittister

I would never have guessed I would go to graduate school and certainly not in mid-life nearing closer to fifty. But something nudged me forward in that arena despite my shaky knees and sense of being not quite as capable as I needed to be. It took longer doing it part-time (5 years) while teaching full-time and still being a wife and parent, but I faced the fear and discovered more about myself than I would have otherwise.

I pursued new things, became a learner again, and felt excitement about stepping once again into a new beginning. Facing the fear gave place to experiencing joy, discovering more of God’s purpose and plans for what gifts He had placed in me. 

Bit by bit God had used everything I experienced before now into a pattern I could never have guessed when I was younger. And I had no idea where this new path would lead me next on my way to the new now.

How we adapt to change and the choices we make and how we respond to them make all the difference. And I could never have guessed what He would have in store next.

Photo by Pam Ecrement