Looking Back

 

With this blog turning three years old, I want to take a look at my life in retirement.
I said initially that I want to record in the blog what God is doing with me here. I'm glad I put it that way. I am even more aware now that whatever growth happens is God's doing. Early on I read Sister Wendy Beckett's book on prayer. She stresses over and over again that prayer is God's work. So is the growth of my relationship with God.
I think I am a better friend to God than I was when I retired. Not that God's a better friend to me. God couldn't possibly love me anymore than when I was 70 or 50 or when I was born. God has always been completely present to me and has always loved me perfectly.
The change has been in me. In this time alone here God has helped me to grow in awareness and love. I am much more aware of God's continual presence and constant love. I have become better able to surrender myself in love to God. I hope this has spilled over into my relationships with other people.
Another theme that I find running prominently through these retirement years is my finding God in the Beauty and Awesomeness of nature. I am blessed here on this lake and in these mountains with glorious views, as well as simple up close glimpses of something like these leaves just beginning to open in the sunshine of an early spring morning.
All this has been accompanied by great joy. Sometimes the joy is so intense that there is a sort of pain that comes with it that I attribute to my inability to take it all in.
Five or six years ago, as I contemplated retiring, I realized that I was only thinking about whether I would be happy here by myself doing nothing for four or five years. It occurred to me one day that I might be here 20 years and I wasn't at all sure that I could do that. I needn't have worried. These nearly four years have gone by very quickly. I look forward to as many as God will give me.