Monday, April 23, 2001
Monday, April 23, 2001
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell
in the house of the LORD my whole life long.
Arriving home, she had just shut the front door when the doorbell rang. It was a young girl from a
florist shop, bringing birthday flowers from a friend. They were lovely. Anita stood there holding
the flowers and admiring them, and the delivery girl stood there, waiting for a tip. The girl noticed
the pin on Anita's jacket and said, "Oh, fifty, eh?" "Yes," Anita answered, and waited. She could
stand one last compliment before her birthday ended. "Fifty," the delivery girl repeated. "That's
great! Birthday or anniversary?"
That's the way life is, isn't it? Just when you start feeling good about yourself, someone is sure to
step up and burst your bubble. God doesn't look at our age, but our heart.
(Psalm 23:6
NRSV)
It was Anita Cheek Milner's fiftieth birthday. Her older daughter gave her a pin that said: 50 is
NIFTY. Anita wore it to work that day, and what fun it was! All day, people kept saying things to
her like, "Anita, you don't look fifty " or "Why, Anita, you can't be fifty" and "We know you can't
be fifty." It was wonderful, she reports. "Now, I knew they were lying," she confesses, "and they
knew I knew, but isn't that what friends and coworkers are for? To lie to you when you need it, in
times of emergency, like divorce and death and turning fifty. You know how it is with a lie,
though," she continues. "You hear it often enough, and you begin to think it's true." By the end of
the day, Anita felt fabulous. She fairly floated home from work. In fact, on the way home, she
thought teasingly: "I really ought to dump my husband. After all, the geezer is fifty-one, way too
old for a young-looking gal like me."
Dear Jesus, fill my heart with your love, so life's ups and downs won't touch me too deeply.
Amen.
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