I’m Retired

Dear God: My fellow employees gave me a huge homemade card, a travel coupon, and a hundred hugs . . . and now I’m retired. Last Friday was my last day; Maggie and I spent two hours cleaning out my office and lugging boxes out to the trunk of the car.

I’ve always said I looked forward to retirement, but the plain truth is that the uncertainty of it gave me a really lost weekend. I always loved going to work. I enjoyed being busy and savored the camaraderie of my coworkers. For 43 years, handling those accounts and bringing in new business was my whole identity. Now I’m just an anonymous gray dot on that growing 65+ sector of America’s sociological pie-charts. AARP signed me up fifteen years ago, for heaven’s sake.

Will our 401k see us through? Will Maggie and I slowly slip into a dreary routine where waiting for the mailman and walking down to the hardware store are the highlights of our lives? And how many more years of life do we have left? I still feel fine, and want for these golden years to be plentiful. But what if they aren’t?

Father, I choose to believe that retirement can be a time where I still grow in You, live for You, and productively honor You. I choose to trust that eternity is on the other side.

And that there is golf in heaven.

In Jesus’ name. Amen.

David B. Smith writes from Southern California.

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