Sep20
Those who love deeply never grow old; they may die of old age, but they die young.
Dorothy Canfield Fisher
To keep the heart unwrinkled, to be hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent that is to triumph over old age.
Amos Bronson Alcott
The answer to old age is to keep one’s mind busy and to go on with one’s life as if it were interminable. I always admired Chekhov for building a new house when he was dying of tuberculosis.
Leon Edel
These are quotes I included in a birthday card and letter I sent my dad. Today is his 94th birthday! I told him these quotes about old age remind me of him. (There are many reasons; my husband told a small group recently that Dad is his hero.)
I hope these quotes cheer him. They cheered me, especially the last one, given the last months in the lives of Tony and Jackina Stark.
I’m just over thirty years behind my dad, but after living in the Joplin area for 42 years and building our “dream house” six year ago, Tony and I were willing to move away and build another one on acres our daughter and her husband gave us in Branson, Missouri, where along with Leanne’s family, we can enjoy the view of a field of cows and a lake.
In this economy, we took a financial hit, but as the commercial goes, “Living near a daughter and her family—priceless!
After two months, I’m beginning to feel like this is home, but I’m finding myself in an extraordinary period of waiting on the Lord, an unexpected period of wondering. I’m praying more than ever the Jeremiah 33 prayer: “Teach me great and unsearchable things I do not know.“
I’ve been absent from this blog for almost two months—because of the move, no doubt, but also because of the waiting and wondering. I began the blog almost two years ago to share things I’ve written through the years with students who have asked for these things in the past and for new readers of my 2009 novels. I haven’t written anything in months (except for these few words), and as I wait, I wonder, will I ever write again?
Well, we shall see.
Meanwhile, as I wait on what God has for me, I wish to do it with dad’s “hopeful, kindly, cheerful, reverent” heart.



LOVE the quotes.
Today is my mom’s birthday, and she is one of my heros, too.
You WILL write again, I have no doubt. Perhaps this is a time of God replenishing the well, but I do not believe for a second He is done speaking through your fingertips.
And don’t worry. As you patiently wait on Him, we will patiently wait on you, and with you. :)