Growing younger?

"You look younger every time I see you!" No, not a message for Cliff Richard, but believe it or not those words were spoken to me today! This afternoon I called to see an elderly lady whose late husband's funeral service I had taken a couple of weeks ago, and those were her parting words to me as I said goodbye after my visit. To be honest, it's not every day that I receive such nice comments! And to be fair, I'm not sure how well the eyesight of the lady in question is functioning these days. Nevertheless, it did give me a warm glow for a while.

Of course, the truth is that none of us can prevent the relentless march of time. Every 24 hours we find ourselves a day older. Despite the vast amounts of money some people spend on cosmetic surgery etc., "old father time" still has his way with our bodies. Whether or not we find it easy to accept, the fact is that sooner or later our ticker will stop beating and our time on plant earth will be up. Many people in the UK now live longer than the Biblical "three score years and ten". But earthly life doesn't last forever. Some of the big, soul-searching questions that it doesn't do any harm to ask ourselves, are, "What will my life add up to? Am I heading in the right direction? What will I achieve in my life?"

Some time ago the old wooden, falling-to-bits doors on our garage were replaced with a metal roller door. It was a massive improvement. A few days ago I went out to open the new roller door and I noticed a rather strange sight. A tiny snail had crawled up the door to about 3/4 way up. It was sitting there (if snails do sit, I'm not sure!) Unfortunately I don't speak snail language, otherwise I'd have asked it "WHY? What was the point of the journey? Are you sure you're heading in the right direction?"

I've no idea what happened to the snail, but at least it reminded me of some fundamental life questions with which I can challenge myself!