Lately I've been thinking more about aging. That's probably due to the fact that my younger sis's birthday is today, which means my big five-o is only three months away. I've noticed that the fashion mags talk about looking good after forty, but rarely do I see anything for the after-fifty group.

Still, there's a reason I'm not hiding my age: I'm no longer a little embarrased about it.

A big part of that is because I went to Africa two months ago. My husband and I, being the oldest ones in the crowd most of the time, were given the nicest seats, the coolest gifts, the best food. In short we got treated with honor. Why? I suspect it's because where we were, very few live to see fifty. Too much tribal warfare, disease, dyssentary, and lack of access to good medicine.

When I fell and snapped my clavicle a few years back, I ended up with a hospital bed in my room, but I lived to see pain-free days again. If I had fallen in one of the villages I visited, it would have meant sure death. There's no way I could have hauled water for miles every day in the shape I was in. Who can live without water?

Instead of feeling embarrassed I should have been feeling gratitude. What provision and protection I have experienced to endure for half a century!

My hubby and I appreciated the special treatment we received in July, not because we craved the spotlight, but because we loved the idea of honoring the aged. What a great contrast with obsessing on the spending habits of X's and Y's. So often in our culture we make the aging feel ugly and used up instead of drawing on their experience, and learning from their mistakes.

The glory of young men is their strength, And the honor of old men is their gray hair (Prov 20:29).

(I dare you to leave a comment revealing your age.)