The Cracked Acorn: Growing Old

Psalm 90:10, NIV: “Our days may come to seventy years, or eighty, if our strength endures; yet the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away.” … Even the best of them are struggle and sorrow; indeed, they pass quickly and we fly away.”

We all want to live as long as possible. The Scripture promises 3 score and ten, 70 years old but just might be longer. As birth certificates have recorded persons who have lived longer, consider the following:

“Only one person has ever been verified to live to be over 120 years. Jeanette Calment from France died August 4th, 1997, living to be 122 years & 164 days. At the time of her death, she was also the only one in the world who had met Vincent van Gogh in person. That means every single person at the time of her birth in the entire world died before she did. Scary thought, isn’t it?

At age 90, with no heirs, she signed a contingency contract with her 47-year-old apartment lawyer saying he would pay a monthly fee of 2500 francs until she died. He probably didn’t expect Calment would live another 32 years. He ended up paying Calment the equivalent of $211, 148.90  which was double the value of the apartment. When he later died aged 77, his widow continued the payments until Calment’s death.” (Wikipedia)

The life expectancy in the USA is now 79.8 years. If you expect to join the club of centenarians, I would suggest you avoid stress. Research of the above person, notes she led a simple life & without stress. Also, she did not have any chronic health problems & lived in a time not having the serious viruses we are experiencing now.

It does not hurt to not clean your plate as I was told to do when I grew up on the farm, there were 3 big meals about every day. No one went to the doctor unless it was a threatening accident. When someone died, many would say it was cancer, which is still with us.

Some believe in the future all diseases, and such will be conquered. When the baseball legend Ted Williams passed on, his head was sealed in a cryonics chamber, to wait for the day he would be thawed and cured and get a new body.

Meanwhile, those of us left behind are trying to eat healthily & avoid too much sunshine & drive a very large vehicle to avoid dying in a crash with another; we hope with a smaller car. With all this,  don’t forget to have lots of insurance for health checks and for unexpected air transports to the best hospitals (when all else fails!)

Mercedes years ago advertised every engine was run full throttle for 30 minutes, I don’t see that anymore. I am sure the company found out it caused lots of stress on the moving parts. An employee I worked with, was going to drive her teens to school; she went, warmed up the car, blew the horn, and raced the engine to get the children’s attention to come to the car; you guessed it all this blowing the horn and racing the engine broke the timing belt.

So, on a human it works the same way…eventually, something will happen to one’s body, to live a long life, eliminate the stress, it is at the top of the list. AMEN!