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HOW TO RETIRE AND KEEP YOUR PEACE
On a beautiful spring day in March, with the uninterrupted birth of new foliage, blooms and vegetations, my spouse and I began our permanent residency in the U.S.A….as well as our early retirement. As usual, when we decided to lean on God our true and marvelous Benefactor, He gave us a chance to live in a small town in Missouri, right next door to our son and family.
As newcomers, we needed much advice and help. The Lord knew that our son’s great experience of some years of life in U.S.A. might help to see us safely through the first difficult months of adjustment. Going with the Lord’s flow of events, He mercifully led us to the right church that was both solid and faithful in times of need. Before long, we were able to furnish a small house, buy a car, and get our Social Security Cards and necessary papers in order. So our new settlement as real “transplants” began.
It was later, one summer afternoon, as we sat on the deck enjoying our Turkish coffee, my husband’s voice cut through the peaceful quietude, “Hey! Did you realize this glorious truth? Unlike our previous busy life, at present we are leading a life of complete rest;” overwhelmed by this reality he almost chanted as he stated that prized fact.
“Yes,” I replied nodding my head in agreement as I took the last sip of my spiced coffee, and reached out for more. “We do need a quiet program, with a restrained, slow pace now; especially after the dire hardships and fatigue of our earlier years.”
It was no offense to reach this positive status of retirement---as it was no sin either to welcome it. We knew that we have both earned it. As we talked, we could clearly hear a sweet melodious voice next door, singing the beautiful words of that famous old hymn:
“Yesterday’s gone, Sweet Jesus,
Tomorrow may never be mine
Lord help me today,
Show me the way,
One day at a time.”
Yes. In His grace, we intended to live and learn more, one day at a time.
Yet with so many retirees around us, it was also greatly comforting and encouraging. We always knew that facing the music of sensitive retirement was a landmark we looked ahead to, simply and faithfully. We knew that God has always been our true Provider in the first stage of life. His presence would positively remain a high factor similarly in this second step. He guided our family budget in our happy marriage especially while I was a home-maker, solely depending upon my husband’s income.
However, we decided not to be inconvenienced by any new circumstances. We tried to look upon the harvest of blessings God has faithfully given us in this new land. With a merry heart my husband and I, between us renamed the word… “RETIRED” to mean “RESTING FROM YEARS OF BEING TIRED.” If we are financially secure, then why not count it all joy?
As my poet friend Dorothy Brown said in one of her poems expressing the role of money in her senior years:
“I think it’s only a turnabout
The way it aught to be:
I worked hard for my money;
Now my money works for me.”
I could not agree more!
Dear friends who are in the same boat as us: let us feel the Lord’s blessed freedom which is sweetly wrapped up in retiring from rigid hours and strict schedules of “the job” which once ruled our destinies! Let us shake ourselves free and forgive our Fate for what may seem to many, an untimely change in our life-style!
Friends… let retirement be a start for a sequence of a new anthology of memories. As we learn to live with flexible programs and “play-it-by-ear” promises, let us replay the many “Fear Nots” in the Bible. They embrace the greatest gem a heavenly Dad can engrave in the hearts of His precious people:
“FEAR THOU NOT: FOR I AM WITH THEE: BE NOT DISMAYED; FOR I AM THY GOD; I WILL STRENGTHEN THEE; YEA I WILL HELP THEE; YEA I WILL UPHOLD THEE WITH THE RIGHT HAND OF MY RIGHTEOUSNESS.” AMEN (Isaiah 41: KJV)
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