Let Me Grow Young

A month or so back, a co-worker casually told this story, about her grandfather I think it was...the story has haunted me since. I'd like to share it.

The story goes, that her family was gathered at the house one night. The grandfather, in his 90's, still insisted on taking his turn with the chores - this night, he was washing the dishes as the rest of the family socialized in the living room. At one point, someone noticed that granddad was taking an awfully long time with this chore.

They found him slumped over the kitchen sink, dish and washcloth still in hand.

And she said that the entire family gathered in the doorway. No one screamed, or cried.

They just...marveled.

They just...stood, in awe.

In reverence, to a life fully lived.

I usually picture someone's last days spent in a hospital bed, maybe some feeding tubes. Sickness, pain, everyone holding their breath through the night to see if he or she "made it" to another day. But not this man.

He was just living life, doing a perfectly ordinary thing. In one instant, he was washing a dish, fully present in the same world he had spent the past 90-odd years. And then...he was gone.

It makes me reverent.

He went somewhere. He lived life, then he left. Where did he go?

Heather Nova is a new favourite of mine: "Sitting here I remember, it's easy to smile. Let me grow young, like a brand new day, like I've just begun."

This story, these lyrics, they slap me across the face, they pour ice cold conviction down my back.

I burn, something in me screams, to lead people somewhere. To take my turn at my post.

To wash the dishes.

How can I feel younger at 30 than I did at 20?

Because there is purpose, passion, authority, which compels me forward to take people somewhere they've never been. It's easy to grow old on the inside, which is what God is really concerned with: our heart, our inside.

What screams inside you?

We never have to grow old. We were never meant to.

Let's all go somewhere together.

Let's grow young together.