One Life Left

With a recent birthday marking nine years till mandatory retirement, Mr. Small Town and I quickly realized that we needed to take a look at how long our savings and investments might last until our death.  Questions surfaced like:

• Do we have enough saved and/or invested?
• How long did we expect to live after retirement?
• What expenses would be coming before or after – during retirement?
• What health concerns might arise and would we be able to afford health care?
• What if (fill in the blank)?

The exercise proved to be a good planning tool and helped us to re-evaluate our financial goals.

During all this financial evaluation, we watched the new Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle movie. In the movie, four students get sucked into a video game where they become the characters in the game and each of them have three bars tattooed on their forearms. After one of the characters die and then gets plopped back into the game, they discover he only has two bars left on his forearm. The bars represent how many lives they have in the game. By the end of the game, each of the characters only have one bar left on their forearm. In the climax ending, one character decides to give up their last bar (life) to get the students out of the game and back into reality.

The tattoos got me thinking. No, I’m not getting a tattoo!

Instead, it got me thinking about how many lives I have left.  If I assumed I would live until 90, or even 80, I’m at the ‘middle’ stage of life meaning I’d have about 1.4 bars left of my 3 bars. If I only make it to 70,  well past mid-life, I’d be at only 1 bar. It was a sobering thought but one that got me thinking.

At 51 years and 10 months old, what do I want to do with the life I have left. How do I want to live it? What do I want to carry out? What legacy do I want to leave behind?

I know – lots of deep questions! But seriously, why not ask these questions every so often. Why not check where you are in life. Are you just busy spinning wheels without living intentionally? Do you think you will live forever without stopping to check your goals – or even make goals? Do you think you’ll keep getting new bars that magically appear on your forearm and you’ll live forever?

Well, all this re-evaluation has brought me to continue with goals and to intentionally set new ones:

• I want to keep improving and growing deeper in my relationship with Mr. Small Town. (We’ll celebrate our 25th wedding anniversary in September!)
• I only have three more years before ‘The Kid’ graduates from high school. I want to be an influence in guiding him in his character, values and life decisions.
• I want to keep making healthy choices to keep my body healthy.
• I want to keep pointing people to God and showing love to the people God brings into my path. I want to live out The Small Town Family’s mission statement: Love God, Love People
• I want to keep sharing about Jesus and how He makes a personal relationship with God possible.
• I want to keep writing and sharing what God is teaching me.
• I want to keep having a ‘teachable’ spirit  – being humble enough to know I still need to learn about God.
• I want to keep being generous with my time, love, and resources where and when God asks.
• I want to keep learning to hear and obey the Holy Spirit’s whispers of faith over fear.

So, there are my goals for living out my last bar. I feel invigorated as I typed them out.

What about you? How many bars do you have left? And, what are you going to do with the lives you have left?

 

It’s my life.

And It’s now or never.

I’m not going to live forever.

I just want to live while I’m alive

Cause, it’s my life.

 

Blessing to you my friends!

 

The Small Town Girl 

 

 

 

°Bon Jovi –  “It’s my life” lyrics