As Time Goes By...what a great song title :)

Interesting thing about retirement....TIME. It's only been 2 weeks since I officially joined the ranks of "retired persons" (add that title now as one of my "hats"), and yet I've stayed incredibly busy, but productively so. I've enjoyed the luxury of having what seems like more time in my day to do my quiet/devotional/prayer time justice. I've also made time for personal health/medical appointments that have been long overdue. One of the nice retirement gifts I received from my co-workers was a mantle clock with an engraved plate which reads," It's Delmar Time". In other words, you can usually count on the the Delmars to operate on their own time schedule give or take an hour. Down here in the Florida Panhandle, it's not central standard time, but what we call "slow time" where life tends to move at a less hectic pace. It's nice here that way.

Another factoid I've discovered about time and retirement is that once you've retired then all of a sudden other people decide they not only want your time but want to tell you how to use it! You get comments like, " Oh, now that you have all of this TIME on your hands, you'll be able to do such and such for us..." That may appear true, but as the Retiree's Motto goes, " I don't want to and I don't have to." I guess one of the best things about retirement though is CHOICE. I can now choose how I want to spend my time...whether it be on activities or with people or just hanging out in my own home. We are truly blessed to have both of our sons, their wives, and our grandson living only minutes away from us, so retirement has given me the opportunity to spend more time with them as well. I wish I could say that with all of this "time on my hands", I have become quite the cook, but alas, I haven't been able to get back into that role quite yet. I am, however, dusting off the cookbooks and looking forward to extending forth the arm of hospitality by providing delicious dinners for family and friends alike. So, to be honest, I've spent lots of time so far attempting to dejunk and reorganize my home. It's amazing (embarrassing, and some might think sinful) to see all of the stuff one collects after both teaching and being married for 30 years! I will address the "clutter" topic in my next post.

A few years ago, I was blessed to hear Mrs. Mary McArthur speak at one of our GulfCoast PresWIC Women's Retreats. I still consistently refer to the notes in my Bible from her message. Her topic was on,"Developing a Lifestyle of Prayer & Personal Bible Study". She had a very powerful but yet practical approach to having an intimate relationship with Christ. Two of the scripture verses she opened with were James 4:14: "Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes;" and Psalm 90:12: "Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom." The next thing she asked us to do was to compute how many days of life we would have if we lived to be 80 (average life span); how many days of life we have already lived; then subtract those two numbers. Well, my time left to live has definitely decreased since I did this activity the first time! 365 days x 54 = 19,710 (days I've lived) subtracted from 29,200 days of life at 80 years = only 9,490 days left to live! Hopefully, good genes on both sides of my family will push my years left on this earth into the 90s, but only time will tell. So, the bottom line is how one spends one's time is very important, retired or not. Bob Evans, PCA pastor in Tallahassee shared the most profound statement concerning time I have heard yet and it is this, " There are only two things that will last and are important to invest time in...the Word of God and the souls of people." I think that pretty well sums it up.