old jazz

“All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field;
the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever.”
-1 Peter 1:24-25

The other day, Mr. Fantastic and I somehow came to the topic of gray hair.

“My mom went gray early in life,” I told him. “If I go gray, let me just say, I’m going gray. I’m gonna rock it.”

He stood there, a little caught off guard. Then he said with a wry smile, “If you have to….”

I laughed and my heart clung to the security of knowing that this man who loves me takes me as I come.

Because in the beginning of our romance we lived a fairy tale. When our love began we cleaned up, dressed up, and showed up to impress one another.

It was fun, thrilling, and intoxicating to be in love like that.

Best friends turned beloved soulmates, married under a palm tree, first kiss at the altar. Our love story was like a one from a book; it seemed too good to be true, but it was for real, for true, and forever.

And now our skin is slackening up a bit, wrinkling in all the usual places, our hair is thinning or graying, and the faces across the table and the ones in the mirror will continue to change and we will get to chose how we respond.

Our youth played like notes on a page, we saw it all written to before us and knew just how the melody would ring out.

But this growing old is like jazz; it is full of spontaneous, unplanned sounds that ring out with the passing years. The notes come from deep within, and to be honest, our shallow culture hasn’t given us much guidance about how to play it.

High school girls are getting breast enhancements for graduation and Botox makes the world go ’round. And I look at my husband and children and I don’t want any of that.

I want jazz. I want to hear a new note, a new song. I look in the mirror and I love the way my laughter has turned into lines that play loudly. I live to show my children that beauty comes from devotion to God, not a bottle.

We’re getting a little squidgey around the edges. These hazy edges can prove we value more than a growing a retirement account and a smooth complexion, and that a life lived for God doesn’t look like a magazine ad hocking wrinkle cream and Spanx.

Or our squidginess can scare us into grasping for the remnant of our youth.

If love is real, then we have to sound like old jazz, full of soul and life, brimming with emotion and wisdom. Our youth will fade whether we like it or not, but God’s word over our lives will never be stifled or silenced.

“He lifted me out of the slimy pit,
out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock
and gave me a firm place to stand.
He put a new song in my mouth,
a hymn of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear the Lord
and put their trust in him.
Blessed is the one
who trusts in the Lord,
who does not look to the proud,
to those who turn aside to false gods.”
-Psalm 40:2-4

It’s a different kind of fairy tale we live in Christ. It’s the best one of all, where the most beautiful people are raised out of ugly lives, once burned by sin now shining with glory, where we turn away from our culture and instead look to God to determine our value, and where the love we live sings out in thanks and praise to the God who gave us breath.

That’s old jazz, and that is the song I want to hear from my life. Who wants to play their song along with me?