The Old Woman in My Future

There's an Old Woman in My Future

I have been somewhat out of step all my life
I started to school at 5, skipped a grade and was
the youngest in my class though high school.
I married my childhood sweetheart and he and i
raised our 7 children. When I finally got to college,
I was probably the oldest in my classes.
I suppose I aged into the study of aging. One day as I was writing a paper for a Gerontology Class when at Georgia State,I typed the words “growing older” and sat there looking at the words i had written. I thought, "'growing older' is two words, not just one and 'growing' is a positive word."

We will all get old if we live long enough. We have no choice. But we can choose whether to grow as we age or merely to get old. So regardless of our present age, if we live long enough there is an old man or an old woman in our future:

The Old Woman in My Future
Someday . . .Somehow . . .Somewhere in time
She's waiting . . . I will see
The old woman . . .Time is making
Time is making . . .out of me!

Will she be a sad complainer,
A fretful tenant of the earth?
Or a kind, productive person
Filled with happiness and mirth?

Please be patient . . . God is making
Molding slowly . . . Out of me
A shining portrait . . . He has promised.
Just you wait and see.

He is smoothing out the roughness
Polishing the dreary places
Filling life with joy and gladness
Pouring out His gifts and graces

God remake me . . . in Your image.
I want to like her . . . when I see
That old woman . . . time is making,
Time is making . . . out of me!

Copyright by Ruth Baird Shaw