Why I’m Living Life Strong till I’m 97

Lately I’ve been posting videos on my social media to encourage women in my area to come to a focus/study group I’m teaching for my new book proposal material. (Above is a screenshot of one.*) I’m not especially comfortable making the videos. I’m more of a face-to-face-use-more-words kinda person. But I am very excited about this material. I want as many women as possible to come and hear what God has for them. So I make the videos in hopes they will help women know they are personally invited and the study is worth their time.

Working on and teaching this prospective book was the result of a stirring God put in me in late winter. I have no idea where it will go and that is A-okay. I am having a ball with our Friday group.

Last week I wrote in my blog about another stirring God has ignited in me. I continue to research it and pray about it. I have no idea what. if anything, will come of it.

In my processing the thought floats through my brain every so often—I am 57. Why am I considering a big new adventure? Why am I not maintaining course?

This morning in my quiet time God impressed this thought on me:

Live as if I have only a few months left.

Plan as if I have forty more years.

Yes, this is my answer. I will continue to pour into the people in my life currently—family, friends, my sweet Friday group. I will make the important things priority—the people I love—and the details that keep life in order and moving forward—finances, care of home, etc.

And I will prayerfully consider my next big adventure as if I have forty more strong years ahead of me. I think immediately of an adventurous senior citizen in the Old Testament. Caleb was one of the original spies of the Promised Land. He was the one telling Moses that they could take the land. The other spies were afraid. The people listened to them and as a result spent the next forty years wandering in the wilderness. When God finally allows the Israelites into the Promised Land, Caleb tells Joshua,
“ ‘Now as you can see, the LORD has kept me alive and well as he promised for all these forty-five years since Moses made this promise—even while Israel wandered in the wilderness. Today I am eighty-five years old. I am as strong now as I was when Moses sent me on that journey, and I can still travel and fight as well as I could then. So give me the hill country that the LORD promised me. . . But if the LORD is with me, I will drive them out of the land, just as the LORD said.’

“So Joshua blessed Caleb son of Jephunneh and gave Hebron to him as his portion of land. Hebron still belong to the descendants of Caleb. . .because he wholeheartedly followed the LORD, the God of Israel.” (Joshua 14:10-15, NLT)

I want to be like Caleb—strong, enthusiastic, and wholeheartedly following God to my last breath.

So I will continue to pursue this latest stirring and take it as far as God gives me a path.

Stay tuned. . .

 

*You may view my video on my Instagram or Facebook. Links on the home page.

Brenda Garrison is an author and speaker who empowers women with the confidence to live their calling. Brenda is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science Degree in Ministry Leadership with a Concentration in Women’s Ministry at Moody Bible Institute. She and her husband, Gene, are the parents of three young adult daughters and live near Metamora, IL.

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