Is this my dad--Claude H. Thorp--in the picture on the left taken in Minneapolis during the early 1950s
Last night I discovered that I may have a half-brother I didn't know about

What should you be thinking about as you get ready to turn 70-years-old?

Me and my granddaughter.
My granddaughter and I check out the day's news.

I'm a member of the first class of baby-boomers born in 1946 right after the end of World War II which means that I turn 70-years-old in less than a week.  It's just a number, right?

I've never been an obituary reader, but over the past year, I've paid more attention to the ages of those who are being written about.  And I've noticed that a whole lot more of them are around my age.  In my mind, this means that I need to carefully pick where I want to concentrate my attention.

Life circumstances can turn on a dime at any age, but it seems to happen more quickly when you're older.  Am I ready?  In my spare moments while going up and down steps, walking in the neighborhood, cleaning out the garage, I try to both strengthen both my physical and my spiritual heart.  They both need to be strong as I enter this next phase of my life.

In reading a biography about a young woman who suffered through a virulent case of cancer where she transparently writes about the experience, I came across this quote:

In the absence of comforts and friends, is Jesus enough?

Her name is Kara Tippetts and her book is "The Hardest Peace"--expecting grace in the midst of life's hard. Her writing as lit a spark in my thinking about how to deal with what lies ahead.  

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