retirement

One teacher asked her young pupils after Christmas break how they spent their holidays. One small boy wrote the following:

We always spend Christmas with Grandma and Grandpa. They used to live in a big brick home, but Grandpa got retarded and they moved to Florida. Now they live in a place with a lot of other retarded people. They all live in little tin boxes.

They ride on big three-wheeled tricycles and they all wear name tags because they don't know who they are. They go to a big building called a wrecked hall; but if it was wrecked they got it fixed because it is all right now. They play games and they do exercise there but they don't do them very good.

There is a swimming pool there. They go into it and just stand there with their hats on. I guess they don't know how to swim. As you go into their park here is a doll house with a little man sitting in it. He watches all day so they can't go out without him seeing them. When they can sneak out they go to the beach and pick up shells they think are dollars.

My Grandma used to bake cookies and stuff, but I guess she forgot how. Nobody cooks, they just eat out. They eat the same thing every night -- "early birds". Some of the people are so retarded they don't know how to cook at all so my Grandma and Grandpa bring food into the wrecked hall and they call it "pot luck".

My Grandma says Grandpa worked all his life and earned his retardment. I wish they would move back up here, but I guess the little man in the doll house won't let them out.

That's certainly a unique view of retirement! I suppose most of us look forward to the time when we can retire and take it easy. As long as we don't retire from serving God!

I love reading about Caleb in the book of Joshua. Caleb is best known for being one of the two faithful spies as the Israelites first approached the land of Canaan. Not only was he an example of faith in his youth, but in his old age as well.

Caleb said to Joshua, "And now, behold, the LORD has kept me alive, as He said, these forty-five years, ever since the LORD spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, here I am this day, eighty-five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in. Now therefore, give me this mountain of which the LORD spoke in that day; for you heard in that day how the Anakim were there, and that the cities were great and fortified. It may be that the LORD will be with me, and I shall be able to drive them out as the LORD said." (Joshua 14:10-12).

What a great example! At the age of 85, Caleb requested the most difficult mountain in Canaan to conquer, with faith that God would be with him. And he took it!

Very few of us will be fortunate enough to have that kind of strength at the age of 85, but we can be fully committed to doing all we can for God at whatever age we may be, young or old.