Dear God, every year always counts, but it feels they count even more now. Let me live every moment with love, kindness, understanding and your peace.

I promise to give others more room, to see them as you see them, not as their crotchety selves (like my crotchety self), but full of unexpected goodness.

“Give them the benefit of the doubt,” shall be my prayer. After all, as Henry James, in his least complicated vein urged, “Be kind, be kind, be kind.”

Let me waste unimagined hours listening. Just because I think I know more, thanks to the wisdom of the passing years, should be a reminder to listen harder and speak less. You God, in your wisdom, gave us two ears and one mouth. Would that I did better than that proportion in using them.

It is so easy to look back but let me look ahead. Hope is an avenue of infinite worth, stretching out into an unimagined future. Let me travel on that highway. The sun is always rising somewhere in this world and in the next.

Enough of judgments, Lord. All those refined perceptions that lead to negativity are really a waste of time. Sheep and goats? Why should I know? You know better. I’ll leave the sorting to you.

It occurs to me that 60 is an opportunity to become a true eccentric. I can become outrageous and people will give me ample rope, but might not that rope be more than enough to hang myself or at least to tie myself up in knots?

(Note to self: Be eccentric on the side of love. That would be enough.)

Let there always be room in my life for what is new: new friends, new challenges, new places, new books, new understanding of your word, new messages, new opportunities.

There will surely be more wrinkles and white hairs, and I welcome them. I gladly look my age while still welcoming the flattering comment, “You don’t look a day over 58.”

No need to complain about the occasional ache or creek of joint. Yes, I suspect there will more time spent in doctors’ offices and maybe a procedure or two. Been there, done that. But the body isn’t everything.

I’m grateful for joys of life. A young heart is its own gift. I thank you for that.

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