It seems like only yesterday I was sixty. That was 2010. Now approaching seventy I’ve found a plethora of changes have occurred not only in my mental state, but physical as well. No longer youthful, even as I presumed so ten years ago. For that matter, even a year ago.

In 2009 my thirty-seven year marriage ended in divorce more on my account, but I think the event was a mutually devastating event on both parties. But that’s the past.

In this last ten years I’ve developed a forward attitude. It comes from a Biblical principle.

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. PHILIPPIANS 3:13-14

I look to the future. None of the past can be changed there from this point in life. But the future can be forged with the decisions of today. Developing goals and listening to God has form my last ten years.

I’ve asked God many times of what to do and when I hear I do. This has resulted in changing a terrible time into a successful point in life presently that I would not change for any reason. My former wife has not moved on and still despises me. My two sons and their wives have forsaken me, even after my attempt to turn the situation. I have made my peace with it and I’m moving on.

I have since remarried to the woman of my life. I only wish I’d met her decades ago. She was my “meant to be”. We laugh, cry, endeavor and walk lock-step with each other. Sure we disagree at times, but the core foundation of our relationship is solid. It’s built on God.

One of the questions I asked God repeatedly when I met her was what was to come of us. His answer was always that I would marry her. That was four years and some months ago now.

Right after my first marriage fell apart God gave me a new job that was substantially more money. I didn’t ask for it. It was laid on my lap. I worked at it seven years until my retirement.

My now wife and I didn’t go to church at first, but then we started going to a quiet little church down the road from my house. Then two or three years later we married there. Not long after we moved to what we thought would be a long term relationship with another church, but the ministry there fell apart after a couple of years. God stepped in and directed us to another church that sprouted out of a former ministry I was in for thirty years. The young twenty-five year old pastor took us in.

This year hasn’t been any less exciting. In January I was asked, that with my background, would I be interested in being ordained into the ministry and state licensed. This is another something that I’d seen in my life decades ago. It was dropped on me and I walked into it in February. Since then my wife has started the Ministerial Apprenticeship program to be ordained in the next couple of years as well. I was set in a couple of months or so ago as the Visitation Chaplain for our church and my wife is my right hand in this, but she has her sights set on helping start a soup kitchen in our church. She is also a part of the Arts Ministry as an interpretive dancer.

In the last couple of years plus I’ve driven a school bus with middle schoolers and elementary students. God told me three years. That will be mostly done at the end of this coming school year. I eagerly await a move towards the next adventure. Not that I want to get away from rowdy screaming kids, but to see how far God is going to carry my wife and me into the future. No looking back. Never.

A decade and a year are coming to a close. A lot has happened for a man who was diagnosed with severe depression and having anxiety attacks to a successful minister and probably the most sane person I’ve ever been in my life. This past ten years and most of all this past year have been a monumental growing time.

If you think you’re sitting in the bottom of the barrel, don’t despair. Today is today. Tomorrow is another day and it can change dramatically if you open your eyes to the possibilities. God is always waiting to open a way for you to walk in that is life-changing. Take that step. You won’t regret it.