Proud To Be a Median Adult – or not!
What is it about Median Adulthood that seems less flashy or interesting or rewarding as other stages of the life cycle? Most of us don’t even like the term! Young adults don’t want to enter here and senior adulthood keeps pushing downward on us. Most people agree Median adulthood starts at about age 40 – except those who are 40 and they think it starts at 50. Isn’t it interesting that AARP starts sending you invitations to join at age 50 and at least by age 55 you’re encouraged to get involved in all the senior adult activities? (And those that are medians know they are not really seniors until at least 70.) They don’t call it the “sandwich generation” for nothing, do they?
Admittedly there are both ups and downs about being a Median Adult. The “downs” first. The real sandwich is being caught between continuing responsibilities of caring for children-some of whom have reached young adulthood- and caring for aging parents who probably live in another city, all at the same time. There are other realities of life that are discovered here as well. Many find themselves at the peak of career options. You will not get to be the president after all but you still have to work long and hard. In fact, you may get downsized and will face a career change – retooling and re-schooling even. Many of these experiences become real hurdles on our faith journeys. “I thought God could do better than this by me.” There are aches and pains that appear at the least provocation and it gets harder to read the information to learn what to do with them. We find it really easy to put spiritual growth and church involvement in neutral – something we will come back to later.
But there are “ups.” Many of us get to become grandparents, even though we know we’re too young for that. Our adult children begin to ask for advice as if suddenly we have become wise. Of course, before we get out of this cycle, most of us will be asking these same children for advice because we still struggle with mastering the new technologies. (The “up” is they are actually willing to help us!) Many of us get to experience some kind of pay off for our efforts at work- to feel some sense of successfulness. This one may sound like a “down” but to begin to feel a desire to be more than successful, to be and do something significant is really an “up.” And these are years that we find ourselves investing in more lives around us than just ourselves. In fact, we find it really easy to put spiritual growth and church involvement in neutral – something we will come back to later.
With all that, I can say there is a growing group of medians at First Baptist-Shreveport who are committed to handling life and discovering how they can give themselves away to God by following His calling in their lives. They have made room for personal spiritual growth and service to others in the midst of busy living. If that is something you are looking for, we hope you will check us out. Feel free to contact me for more information about Median Adults at First Baptist. Remember, living life in neutral gets you no where.
Gene Hendrix
Minister of Christian Formation and Administration
gene@fbcshreveport.org
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