An individual I care about is growing. This person has moved up the ranks from working on the sales floor for an employer to advancing to become the "right hand" for the general manager. A lot of new responsibilities. We talk often about the challenges. This person is "flying on instruments" for the first time, growing into the job, horizons greatly expanded. Every day a new learning experience. I am enjoying seeing it happen. Though each day they walk further into the unknown, they're doing it, they're meeting each challenge head-on, laying the groundwork for the next one. They are enjoying their vocation more than ever, and I love watching it. I love what it is doing to and for them.

Another person close to me is also experiencing a new situation. Their spouse has "bailed" on them. Taken off. Enticed by uncontrolled passions. Promises broken. Children abandoned. The spouse discarded like an old newspaper. What devastation, what lasting injury! Many of us know the fractured home. But statistics don't make it any less a severe car wreck. This person too is navigating change. Unwanted and unexpected change. And again I witness courage and the confronting of seemingly insurmountable challenges, along with unfathomably deep suffering. And I do not like seeing it. I loathe what it is doing to them. But I am there for them, rooting for them, wanting the best, expecting the best, affirming, valuing, battling with them the specter of abandonment.

Both are in my prayers day and night. Another very close friend, a brother even, has with his family devoted his life to the growth and nurturing of others. He's a pastor--he's my pastor. Several years ago he moved across the country to minister to our small church. Even before he arrived he had to go back and facilitate a funeral in his former town. He joined us during Covid. He then had a kidney removed, and not long after he suffered an evil attack by...a church member. But he has remained faithful, he and his family enduring each of life's vicissitudes with steadfastness and hope. I admire him and am encouraged by his faith and the growth I see in him. And of course I pray for him all the time. A very special person.

A colleague and friend for a score of years, another in my social circle, took his life this past year. It seems so incredible. He was not the kind to dwell on the negative, not a complainer. Never disturbed by circumstances. All the more shocking then was the news. I'm still processing it. Gossip and suspicion surrounds the incident, but I just plain miss him. Never really close friends, we were nonetheless shoulder to shoulder in our vocations, sharing many of the same perspectives, often at the same intersections of our professions, we at one point were decision-makers who did deals together to the advantage of our respective employers. I looked up to him. I never dreamed he would be one to do this. Every so often I catch myself, realizing he is gone. It shook me a surprising amount.

I too have had an interesting time lately. Healthy all my life, heretofor unfamiliar with the medical establishment, now diagnosed with cancer. Major surgery has the promise of "heading it off at the pass", and I am grateful for the doctors and all those who have cared and prayed and been solicitous, especially in my recovery, and none more than those my brothers in the faith. But I am under no illusion that I will necessarily always be cancer-free. Fortunately, it's one of the most survivable kinds. So maybe. And I am pretty old now of course, so how many more years can I look forward to anyway. Thankful to God, trusting in Him through Jesus Christ to do with me what He wills. I'll take what He apportions to me. Because He is wise and He does everything perfectly. Whatever He does with it, as the Bible says, "I can entrust my body to Him", Psalm 16:9b NLT. Far from false piety, this is faith. And there are many close to me who have been through worse.

Time passages. Life's events. Days turn into years without warning. Then a lifetime. Soon you are older than you ever envisioned yourself. My mirror shows me a person who is at least thirty years younger than the picture in my mind's eye. Funny, that. So much has changed and so much has happened it's like I've been three or four different people over the course of my life. In all the ways that count, I probably have been. But I have few regrets and though significant, they are "swallowed up in Christ". They really don't matter. Life is intriguing, mysterious, insightful. Many of the questions of life are now clear. Why can't those insights come when you're younger? We laugh, but it's a real paradox. However, I have never been more thankful than now. I have never been more full of joy and cheerful wonder.