Tonight I was talking with Mike Browning, the lead guitarist in our band at The Gathering Place.  He’s 19.  I’m 27.  But it feels like we’re the same age, at least for me.  Earlier we had heard the song “Have You Ever Seen the Rain,” on the radio and it kind of sticks in your head, so Mike and I kept singing it, kind of under our breath like you do when a song gets stuck in your head.  Then Mike says, “Who sang that song?  Hootie and the Blowfish?”  And was like, “No, man, Creedence Clearwater Revival sang that, probably before I was born.  Its classic rock.  Hootie is from the 90’s and that is definitely NOT classic rock.  Hootie came out when I was in high school.”  Then it dawned on me that high school was only a year ago for Mike, but 10 years ago for me, and Hootie and the Blowfish were very close to being “classic” rock.  That hurt a little bit.

A few weeks ago I was speaking at a Youth Summer-Mission Camp for a few days, and one of the kids came up to me and said, “Its really easy to listen to you speak because you talk just like a teenager would.”  First of all, I wasn’t sure this was a compliment (I decided to take it as one though).  She could have been insulting my maturity, but I think she meant it to be nice.  But still, what hit my heart most was that I “talked like” a teenager, not that I am a teenager.  I guess a lot of times I feel like I am a teenager.  But I am not.  I’m 27.  I’ve been married for almost 4 years.  I am a father to a toddler.  Definitely nothing teen about those facts.

This weekend my wife and son were out of town and I was home by myself.  I was a little miserable, and would have been a lot more miserable.  Luckily my friend Patrick was willing to hang out with me.  We went to the movies.  We went skim-boarding.  We did a half-day of kayaking.  It was great – very much like being single.  It was fun.  But at night I would come home and it would not take long before the emptiness and the stillness of the house surrounded me.  It was strange walking by my son’s room and it being so dark and empty and quiet.  It was difficult to try to go to sleep without my wife next to me.  I couldn’t even sleep in my bed because it was so weird.  I had to sleep on the couch.  And the words God spoke in Genesis echoed in my head: “It is not good for man to be alone.”

My wife and son returned tonight, and I’ve never been so happy.  The teen years are gone.  My music is now “classic.”  I am not a single bachelor.  I cannot simply go out and see a movie or kayak for half a day when the urge hits.  I cannot eath pizza every night and fall asleep in the wee hours in the glare of TV.  Those things were fun in their season.  But that season has passed.  And I would not trade my life now for a million years as a teenager or as a bachelor.

Thank God for age.  It may be painful sometimes, but there is so much joy in a life shared and a life given for others.  So all of you teens and bachelors and bachelorettes out there – enjoy it now, but know that something far greater awaits you!