How Many Years Will I Live, and What Should I Do With Them?

There is something about purchasing a life insurance that just beckons one to think about death. In considering how much life insurance we need, what kind of premium we can afford, and for how long the term will last, a certain question keeps coming up in my head.

How many years do I have left on this earth?

Obviously, none of us know for sure. This could be my last night at the computer, or I could live to be 100. But realistically, at the age of 48, I realize that I probably only have 30 or so years left on this earth. I am, most likely, over the hill and on the downward slide.

I have really thought a lot about that lately.

The first 24 years of my life were primarily spent learning and growing. I went to school, then college, fell in love, got married. I learned to walk, talk, read, and write. I learned to be a daughter, sister, friend, and wife.

The second 24 years of my life have mainly been about loving and caring. These are the experience years. I have been challenged to practice all the things I learned in the first trimester of my life and have continued my studies in the life of “hard knocks,” learning by doing and messing up and doing again. Still a daughter, sister, friend, and wife, I have also been a mother and aunt. For the most part, these years were spent loving and caring for my family.

As I look out into the future, I can’t help but wonder, what will define the last 24 (or more) years of my life? My kids are gone or grown or headed that way. Ryan has two years left in high school. Braxton has three. I know that I will always have a part in their lives, but it’s obvious that the role I play as their mother is going to change.  

I really have never been one to contemplate “growing old,” but thirty years doesn’t seem like that much time. I guess I think about things like this a little more now than I did a year ago.

Psalm 90:12 says, “Teach us to realize the brevity of life, so that we may grow in wisdom.”

No one knows what tomorrow will bring, and I am really seeking God’s will for my life right now and in the coming years. But, if I get a choice, I kind of like that word—not brevity, the other one. If I had to choose what will define the last years of my life, I hope it’s that one--wisdom.

I have big dreams that are not yet fulfilled. I have big dreams for The Girls Get Together, but I have really been questioning the validity of those dreams, of this business, of many aspects of my life right now. Please pray with me that I would have wisdom to know what God wants for me and from me. Please pray that the last years of my life—whether they are few are many--are spent growing in wisdom.