YOUTUBE u-n-XrZ1piQ
I live, uh, on the Axton road, Ferndale near Ferndale, Bellingham, Washington. Um, I'm 68 years old and I was born and raised about that while I was born and moved to the house. I was raised in about 68 years ago. And that's only a mile away from where I live. Oh, my dad and mum always had a little farm and they had a farm on the, on the first road. And then they moved to this larger egg farm, or this larger chicken production farm. Uh, that's nearby where I live. There's nothing that's changed that dramatically in that space and even to the east and west of that house. Um, the, a lot of the original buildings are still in place. Growing up hearing like come county. I always thought that, um, and it was a pretty healthy environment. There were a lot of people that I look back on now when I was growing. Who had, who were not selfish. And the reason I say that is they didn't think about them and their own family. First, they thought about the community first and they watched all the children. We, we had, we were free range chickens. I had fun this last year. I grew lots of more vegetable than I could use. And somebody said, take it to the food bank. And the food bank was overwhelmed. So I put a sign out front and made a table. And once a week we had God's table and people came and got produced and wanted to know why I wasn't charging. And I said, cause I don't want to babysit this. I just want you to enjoy it. This is God's produce, this is the extra. My grandmother always called Mount baker. My mountain. She'd say, can I kind of feel that way too? It's hard to be in a situation where I can't see. Uh, of course we have clouds, uh, at least once a week or so, you know, get a good view of it. And we have several really good spots to sit and observe it stay active for as long as you can stay active, don't sit down and stay safe. Binge watching TV. So really bad thing, even reading for too long is a really bad thing. I've had people in my family who, uh, who indulged too much in drink. Um, and I learned early on not to do that. I had, um, people in my family who. Uh, we're sedentary. Um, and I learned early on don't sit, no matter how bad, whatever hurts, just don't sit. You know, I have arthritis. Can I keep moving all the time when you've been physically very active, connected to preschoolers at the church, uh, not having those connections during this pandemic with younger people has taken its toll. 15 years ago, 18 years ago, I was hit by a car in a crosswalk in Ferndale, and I went down and it took me. I went to 80 plus years old overnight. It took, uh, more than three years to get back to where I'm at now. It made me brave to speak. What's on my heart and what's my truth, rather than couching it based on who, how the receiver's going to take it. The other thing is, um, I don't fear the next stages. I don't fear. Um, the physical growing older, the mental growing older, I don't fear any longer. Those. Uh, if I had fears and I know that everybody does have some fears, they just went away. I did the, um, the, uh, advanced care, um, paperwork. It's all filed with everybody copies here, copies there with my children, et cetera. Uh, and that's just free. That's just one of the most freeing things you can do for yourself. And you feel not only that, it frees you, but it frees your family. I think that's one of the best parts of aging is, um, you get to a point where it's like, it frees you up and you say, well, I can, I, I can take a risk. I can go and do these things because, um, but it's why you see older people jumping out of airplanes. You know, they're not afraid of what comes next. Older people need to recognize that younger people need to be playing a larger. Mentor then we'll teach them well, and then get out of the way, because you're just seeing everything potentially with older eyes instead of what's the future. And, um, so I really get upset with people who hang on to a position for too long and don't recognize that they need to relax and trust that they've built the correct. Thinking in modeling prayer future.