"Even to your old age, I am He, and even to gray hairs I will carry you! I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you." Isaiah 46:4

To grasp God's love for Israel is to begin to comprehend His love for you and me. How many times Israel broke his heart! Limited Him! Compromised His Word! Made foolish and stupid choices! Just like us! Yet here is our love­ly God promising to still be caring into their old age and gray hairs; promising to bear, carry and deliver them.

Now here I am—a senior citizen—with gray hairs multiplying and wrinkles deepening— counting on the Lord to keep me faithful to the end and to complete His three-fold promise to bear, carry and deliver me.

I wish the same for you; a life where you and I keep stepping out on faith to reach and teach the younger generation to choose only the Lord. If we do our part to obey the Lord, He will do His part to bear us up through every test and temptation, to carry us through every storm and to deliver us from every devious device of the devil.

May we grow older serving others, not old serving ourselves. One child wrote of his grandparents: "We always used to spend the holidays with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live here in a big brick house, but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Arizona. Now they live in a place with other retarded people. They ride around on big tricycles and wear nametags because they don't know who they are anymore. They go to a building called a wrecked center and play games and do exercises. At their gate, there is a doll house with a little old man watching all day, so nobody can escape. Sometimes they sneak out and go cruising in their golf carts. They just eat out - the same thing every night - early birds. Grandma says Grandpa worked hard to earn his retardment and that someday I can be retarded, too. When I earn my retardment I want to be the man in the doll house. Then I will let people out so that they can visit their grandchildren."

Let's be more than "retarded" to the youngest generation. Let's be their examples of how great God is, not how good our golf game is.

My prayer: "As the gray hairs and wrinkles will surely deepen, let my life so deepen in You, Lord, that I will be an example of loving You to my last breath."

"Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ" (I Corinthians 11:1)
The ST. PAUL SCHOOL, with Frank Eiklor, Eileen Young and Cecilia Contreras