A Prayer Request And Numbering Our Days

 One of the habits I tend to practice when I am on vacation is that I regularly track The Book of Face on my phone, mostly as a method of uploading pictures of what we are doing.  As with here, it is always a pleasure to share the places I go with people.  A secondary output of that is I tend to get more updates on people's lives than what I typically do. 

Thus, it was with a bit of shock that I saw one morning that my long time (40+ year) best friend from high school days, The Director, had a stroke.

As it turns out, not just a single stroke.  Likely this was the second or third one and a coworker had finally noticed it. He was in the hospital, then out, then back in as he was still having issues.  He is, thankfully, stabilized and home and working on starting his recovery.

Given my experience with TB The Elder, I am sensitized to strokes.  Given the fact The Director is my age, I am doubly so.

It is a reminder of the realities of life and the fact that life - at least this life - is not endless.

That thought has been on my mind anyway due to the last year or so, with a combination of my father's death, the loss of my job (initially of interest, then of the actual job itself), and doing the actuary math of lifestyles of the over 50.  

My estimate - given family history, which is likely an general guide but never a precise one, suggests that at best I likely have 25-30 years max.  How much of that time remains "productive" remains to be seen but is a great unknown as well.

One of my great strengths - and weaknesses - is that I always like doing and learning new things.  That is of great benefit in that it keeps the mind engaged. It is less good in that one sometimes struggles to keep the commitment and focus on a few things to the point that one becomes more skilled in them.  

And now, with this reminder, it is a good thing to take stock precisely of what I am doing and what I intend to spend the next years - if I am granted them - working on.  Likely it will be a continuing combination of old and new - after all, without the willingness to try the new I would never have gone to Greece or started hiking - but the reality is that I simply cannot just keep "adding" new things without end.  There has to be a combination of adding the new while continuing to focus on those items that I have committed to improving on.

As always I would ask - and I ask only because I know of your generosity in this area - that you would keep the The Director and his family in your thoughts and prayers.  And perhaps, pray for all of us that we, as Moses suggested in Psalm 90, might "number our days" accordingly that we might spend them in the best way possible.