How to be a good...'Old Person'....

Start when you are young...

There is a story told to me by a friend, Luci....when she was in college, age 20, she met, Edna, who was 80. Edna lived alone in a three-room house two blocks from the college campus.
Her daughter, Marian, and Luci sang together in the church choir and one Sunday Marian invited a group of students to lunch at her mother's home.
Luci tells it like this, "When we approached the little clapboard house where Edna lived, I loved it immediately. There was flowers everywhere - all over the yard as well as in window boxes. Classical music filled the air, along with the smell of fresh baking bread.
Edna, a spry, animated little woman, greeted us all warmly and smilingly asked, "How about a glass of iced tea?" Edna went into the kitchen while I began to browse....
Books were everywhere....on shelves, the floor, the chairs....it was obvious she was reading many of them at once....I asked, "you enjoy reading, Edna?"
"Yes, I love it. I'll never have enough time to read all I want, but I'm making a dent in my list. Some of these books I've had all my life. They're old and weathered...like me," she said, laughing, "but I can't ever throw them away and I'm always adding new ones."
I found that I 'liked' Edna and the way she lived, and I wanted to be with her, learn from her, and memorize how to be at any age.
She used to have little sayings like,

"While I'm making bread, I'm writing poetry in my head." or
"Planting flowers the other day, I worked on memorizing the first six Psalms." or
"I was standing at my kitchen window last week, when it hit me....I think I'll paint the bathroom...so I did." or
"I ran across a French word today while I was reading. Had to look it up so I could keep going."
What was Edna's secret? I do not know but all I know is that...
she simply lived, and lived...simply, every day...all the time!
She put her 'whole self' into everything she did, savoring her moments, counting her blessings, trying new things...

She used to say....'if you want to be happy when you are old.....start young!
Stay centered with the Lord, learn something new every day, ....wear your inside person outside, being who you really are, know that tranquillity is your greatest source of beauty, and don't every stop (for any reason) loving others."

When Luci relates this story I find that I have many "Edna's" who have influenced my life as well. Yet today, sitting at a laptop computer, drawing images from my digital camera, and using all the 'now technology' of life, it would appear that life is .....not simple.
Unless we make it so......just as my mouth tastes and knows...good food....so it is with my mind when I hear and 'taste' truths....

Ecclesiastes 11:8 says....
'However many years a man/woman may live,
let him enjoy them all....'

My friend, Sally and great-granddaughter Kinsley, enjoy 'being young' together....