I remember the details of the day. A warm September morning, 1976. I was early, so walked around
St James’s Square, London, a couple of times before plucking up the courage to
go in. The Clerical, Medical & General Life Assurance Society. My first
job.
I wore a three piece purple suit with ridiculous flared trousers.
Despite that, they let me in. I worked as a Pensions Documentation Clerk and
quickly found that pensions wasn’t as boring as the name suggested to a twenty-one
year old.
I realised that pretty much everything in pensions revolved
around the age of 65 – the normal retirement age for men (It’s changed a bit
nowadays). So I did my own calculation on that very first day – when would I reach
that milestone? It was with some relief that by my calculation, the day would
never arrive. It was so far in the future.
10th April 2020.
Well here we are. The flares are long gone (though I still
like purple). In this strange season of lockdown, my plans to celebrate with a tour
of the Scottish whisky distilleries went by the way, though Roh set out a tour
of the garden to find my own bottles of whisky! And my main present was a
bottle of 12 year old Old Pulteney single malt, from the northernmost distillery
in the British Isles. I like to think that my tastes have improved a little
since the purple flares.
Where did the time go? How did I get here?
The answer is by the grace of God.
I’m grateful for every step of the journey. Thankful for God’s
goodness, a beautiful wife, four amazing children, three incredible
sons/daughter in laws and two awesome granddaughters. And a pretty decent
career in pensions.
The day did arrive. It wasn’t such a long time. May I
encourage you, as the Bible says, to ‘count your days and seek a heart of
wisdom.’ (Psalm 90)
My Old Testament hero is Caleb. He was still conquering mountains
at the age of 85 (that’s where the idea for this blog came from 15 years ago),
so I trust I still have plenty of time to count my days and seek wisdom. And
still plenty of time to continue to conquer the mountains of life for the One
who conquered all for me.