Three score and ten?

FMF Writing prompt: Twenty

Every Friday, I join an online Christian writing community, Five Minute Friday. We are given a one-word prompt and write – unscripted, unedited, pure free-write – for 5 minutes. The prompt this week is ‘TWENTY’

18:01

I am of the age when most of my life has been dated 19- something, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s.

Twenty-something feels very recent!

I remember the sense of occasion vividly on the approach of the new millennium and of it becoming 2000.

Some called it the noughties. I felt quite old!

The noughties passed in a lot of personal changes, challenges, blessings and – well, LIFE, I guess.

I don’t know how it was called when we hit 2010 and that decade – was it the teenies maybe?

For me, twenty- twelve was a bit of a breakdown, leading to twenty-fifteen as the start of a proper recovery.

2015 I determined would be the best year of my life! It was!

Maybe it was/is all part of a process towards recovery, because I am so blind, deaf and stubborn in my heart! I thank God for his loving patience!

Then we got to 2020 – that excited me, because the nerdy part of me loves number patterns.

I expect I was particularly tickled to get to 20/02/2020, and even to 02/02/2020.

I remember folk posting prophetically about 20-20 vision and an air of expectation, but with the benefit of hindsight the twenty-twenties seem to have been swallowed up in a covid-19 aftermath of fear, chaos, mistrust and hardships.

But there was growth and many blessings amidst this time. There was great courage, trust, generosity and sacrifice too.

There is always hope.

God was not surprised by any of this, as we were.

It being 2022 already makes me realise that we are here for such a short time.

Even a general life-span is counted in 20s – three score years and ten, I remember often hearing. Whether I live that long or longer, God only knows, for He has numbered my days and my times are in His hands.

I will trust Him every day, with every hour and every breath.

With my ‘one-day-at-a-time’, may I honour my Father God and honour and cherish all of life that He has created, especially yours (whoever you are) and mine.

Life is a beautiful gift, however old you are.