The Best Years of My Life

In Isaiah 30:18 we read: Therefore, the Lord waits to be gracious to you, and therefore he exalts himself to show mercy to you.

What does he wait for? Sometimes it is for us to ask (James 4:2).

I asked God for something a few years ago and the Lord has shown his grace and mercy in abundance in answering my request. I was sitting in my living room in Beaver Falls, thinking about life. I had had yet another birthday, my seventy-fourth or seventy-fifth birthday, an age I was astonished to think of as my age—not my grandmother’s! I was also astonished at how quickly this birthday had come around. Psalm 144:4 felt so true: Man is like a breath; his days are like a passing shadow.

I come from a family where many live well into their nineties. The Lord has also blessed me with good health. My financial advisor told me once that according to the actuary tables, I would live to ninety-six. Amused at the certainty insurers seemed to have about the future, I began to use that number, tongue-in-cheek, in my own plans. So, I had less than a quarter of a century left!

That afternoon, as I thought about my life in that light and about how quickly the previous twenty years had passed, I prayed that the Lord would make the last years of my life the best yet.

I knew the joy that comes from walking with Christ, and that in him even seemingly mundane things can count for eternity. In the Beaver Falls church community, I saw so many examples of older people, my peers, whose lives were beautiful models of purposeful living. They served others cheerfully and generously, they gardened, exercised, enjoyed cultural events, read books, joined book clubs, enjoyed eating out, and much more. They showed their love for the Lord and how to glorify and enjoy him in wonderfully practical ways.

In contrast to the way those friends seemed to live so purposefully in such a natural way, I felt that I was just drifting along. I had retired from teaching in the spring of 2020. For the first six months, I was undeniably mildly depressed. I recognized that, despite my stated belief that my identity was found in Christ and not in anything I did, I had been relying on my profession for much of my sense of identity and worth. The Lord showed me my need to repent of that and to enjoy my identity—in Christ.

Asking the Lord to make the last years of my life the best ones was helpful. It shifted my focus toward seeing what the Lord could and would do in my life. It gave me a purposeful attitude. A specific request I made was for my traveling days not to be over yet. As an MK, a career teacher of English as a Foreign Language, and a worker under the RPGM, living in different countries was an important part of life, something I loved to do.

I could not have imagined how the Lord would answer my prayer and allow me to do some more traveling as well.

It started with the B family, the first people to serve in the Central Asian field. I had met the family and was praying for them. I admired their courage in taking their young family to a place that seemed so dangerous. In the autumn of 2023, the RPGM put out a special appeal for people to join the B Family in Central Asia, as they had finished their intensive language learning phase and were ready to begin building a team. I waited to see who would step up to the challenge.

At the time, my pastor, Rev. Matt Filbert, was preaching through the Gospel of Luke and had come to Chapter 10. That is a key chapter relating to taking the Good News into the whole needy world. Pastor Matt took several weeks to cover the chapter, and over those weeks the Spirit did a quiet work in my heart.

As I thought about Jesus’s words, “I am sending you out as lambs in the midst of wolves,” I sensed the security that the B family must feel in knowing that it was the Lord Jesus who had placed them where they were and would be their faithful and strong Shepherd. I thought about how intentional the Lord Jesus was: I am sending you. He sends his servants right into the midst of wolves.

I also wondered, “Is no one going to offer to go help them?” One Lord’s Day evening, as I thought about the morning message and the appeal from RPGM, I suddenly thought, “I could volunteer.” I had no responsibilities holding me back. I was experienced at overseas living. My background as a language teacher might even prove useful.

I told the Lord that I was willing to go and would wait on him to open the path ahead if it was what he wanted. I experienced a wonderful feeling of God’s approval. My decisions on life choices have usually followed Biblical principles and circumstances, with feelings playing a minor role. It was a sweet experience that evening to feel such a strong sense of God’s pleasure, as though he were smiling at me.

About three months later, I boarded a plane in Boston to fly over to this country where I have been part of the Central Asia team for the past two years. I am amazed at the way the Lord has been answering my prayer that the last years of my life would be the best yet.

What is making this time such memorable years for me is not simply that I enjoy being here. It’s a country of diversity, history, rich culture, delicious food, natural beauty, friendly people, and more. I do enjoy those things, but the most amazing thing is the way the Lord is taking me deeper into my relationship with him. It’s as though he needed to get me out of my familiar, comfortable setting to get my attention so he could show me things that needed to change if I want to experience the best years of my life. Because we are so aware of the spiritual warfare we are engaged in, we lean more into the Word and prayer. The fellowship times with other believers are deep and intentional. And, on top of all that, the Lord has graciously allowed me to be a witness for him to people who are without the hope of the Gospel.

It has been humbling to see that the Lord can and does make use of someone well past the “use by” date stamped on us by our culture. I retired at sixty-nine from serving in the church in Japan. It seemed like a proper time to retire. However, now in my seventy-ninth year, I am just waiting for the Lord’s direction. I know that wherever he takes me, I am enjoying the best years of my life!