Feeling Old

I've mentioned before that we spend a lot of time traveling around and sharing our hearts for Costa Rica with various churches these days. Some of them are churches we've been to before and some of them are churches we haven't ever been to. We love visiting churches whether it's our first time there or whether we've been there many times before. It's either an opportunity to meet new people or see old friends. I love both. The church we visited yesterday was one that I had been to before. In fact, I served as a youth/children's pastor of sorts at Vietnamese Christian Center (VCC) in Worcester, MA during the summers of my college years while my brother Stephan was serving as the church's interim pastor. So it should come as no surprise that I was excited to visit yesterday and see some old friends.

It wasn't my first time preaching at the church, but it was my first time preaching there in a few years anyway. At least, that's how I thought about it as I was getting ready for church yesterday morning. It didn't feel like it had been that long since I had last preached there. I then began to think of when the last time was. I used some simple deductive reasoning to assess that it was when I was still in college because I had become the youth pastor at Calvary Assembly of God in Dudley, MA in the summer immediately following graduation. Assuming (a fair assumption) that I last preached there during the summer in between my junior and senior years of college, that would mean that I had last preached at VCC sometime during the summer of 2004, or a little over eight years ago. That's when it hit me...I'm getting old. Let me explain.

The fact that it was eight years ago in and of itself is not really all that big a deal. I mean, as long as your over the age of eight, you clearly did something eight years ago. And nobody would argue that an 8-year-old is old. No, eight years on its own is not a big deal. BUT when you couple that with the fact that I viewed the eight years as a short period of time, it is a very big deal. I sincerely thought of it as though it wasn't that long ago, yet it was eight years. This means that eight years is a short period to me. This means that I'm getting old. I mean, think about it...eight years ago to a 16-year-old is half a lifetime ago. When I was a sophomore in high school (16), second grade (8) seemed very distant to me. That's because, relatively speaking, it was. Yep, the only reasonable conclusion to how I felt about that eight year period of time is that I'm getting old.

On the bright side, I can't be that old because I did still remember serving and preaching at VCC eight years ago. Really old people would have forgotten that.

Hmmm...you know on second thought, maybe I do feel like it was a long time ago and I'm just giving into Polly's constant reminders of how old I am as I close in on 30.

Well, regardless of how old I am or am not feeling, I thoroughly enjoyed my visit with the wonderful people at VCC yesterday. I hope it's not another eight years before I see them all again...even if it isn't that long a period of time; or is it? (this battle will be raging internally for a while). They were as loving and generous as ever.

In Christ,

Mike

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