Life Transitions - Choosing to Make Life Work

          I am experiencing several different life transitions as I am aging.  I try to identify the transitions in order to stay on top of why I respond or react to different situations the way I do.  

          As a retired 83 year old, some transitions are freeing.  For instance I do not have to get up and go to work or school at a certain hour each day.  Liberating!  I can choose what I want to do when I want to do it.  My husband, Richard, used to say,“ retirement is great.  You can choose what you want to do without getting paid for it.”  Also Liberating! 

          What is hard about some transitions that are not liberating!  Watching friends getting older and dealing with difficult health issues.  Admitting to yourself you are not able to do what you use to.  This is a slow transition.  It creeps up on you sometimes without your noticing it.  Little by little you realize your new occupation is going to doctors.  The challenge is to keep your mind sharp, take one day at a time, and practice being grateful for life and all its opportunities in spite of some of the limitations.  Before I go to sleep each night, I try to remember one good thing that happened that day and thank God for it.   I’ll probably get into transitions more in a future blog. 

Summers at Forest Home - A Funny thing happened on the way to camp

          From 1954 to 1958 while teaching, Richard was the Director of Christian Education at Wilshire Presbyterian Church.  During the summers he took a job with Forest Home Christian Conference Center north of Redlands in California.  He was on a retainer as the Director of The Ranch--a camp for Juniors and Junior Highers.  Every summer we would pack up the two and then three kids and move up to camp for 3 months.
         We learned a lot about being on a camp staff in those years.  It was nothing for the Director to move our family with three little children around from cabin to cabin throughout the summer.  Sometimes this happened week by week if he needed the space for guests coming on the grounds. This was not easy.  This made us sensitive to the needs of staff as we began to serve in the camp and conference ministry.  We worked at integrating staff, counselors and campers as one family in our camps.

Choosing to Make Life Work--What do you think?

It is apparent, to me anyway, that when situations occur around me or in the community or even in the world I have opinions about them.  I thought I would start blogging about some of them mostly as a way to share my thoughts hoping it would begin a dialogue with others.  The more we can share with one another, the more we hopefully understand what is happening with other people.  Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”  I hope I love myself enough to share what I think, and I hope I love my neighbor enough to care what my neighbor thinks.

It Worked Out

I decided to go with Richard to the CE Conference at Tahquitz Pines.  Richard's parents encouraged me to go.  They promised to spend time with my mother and help her with the move. Talk about helpful!  My mother told me how surprised she was to see them at the door, tools in hand.   They worked all day with her.  They probably helped her more than I could have.  It was one of those Richard's "don't worry" things.  It worked out.