The one place in our humble residence I would prefer to avoid, especially in the morning, is my bathroom. The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage has her bathroom, and I have mine.

I make visiting my bathroom in the morning as quick as possible. As I walk into my bathroom, on the right side is that awful thing called the mirror. Whenever I look into it, some old man looks back at me and then smiles.

I have asked The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage if I could put a curtain in front of my mirror so that I would only see it when I had to.

She would laugh and say, “Oh, you silly boy, you need that mirror to help you look the best you can.”

Many of my friends spend a lot of money and time to keep themselves as young looking as possible. They exercise, go on a strict diet, and some even have surgery to make them look better than they are.

I have one friend, a very wonderful lady, whom I’ve known most of my life. One thing about this young lady is that she wants people to think she’s young and works tirelessly to keep looking young.

She has had several facelifts to make sure all of the wrinkles disappear. Whenever she sees a wrinkle, she has to stop whatever she’s doing and take care of it, no matter the cost.

I don’t see her often anymore, but whenever I do, I usually say something like, “Is that a new wrinkle on your face? I think it’s a wonderful wrinkle.”

She will laugh and then disappear into the bathroom in a few moments to check out that wrinkle. Sometime that week, she will be at her doctor getting rid of that wrinkle.

Many try to show how young they look whenever we have a family get-together. They walk around smiling, hoping somebody will notice how young they look.

For some of them, when we plan to get together, it takes several weeks to prepare for that get-together. I can get together overnight and have no problems with that.

Whenever I meet one of those people, and I know who they are, I always compliment them on their good looks. They always smile back and thank me.

Then, out of nowhere, I sometimes say, “You don’t have as many wrinkles today as you did the last time I saw you.” I laugh, but they usually don’t join in.

It must be a very hard job to stay young anymore. On the other side of the mirror, I have an easy life of looking as old as possible. Every wrinkle on my face is an opportunity to celebrate that I’m still getting older.

In the Old Testament, Job had an issue with wrinkles. “And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face” (Job 16:8).

I can relate to Job, but then I remembered what the Apostle Paul said in Ephesians 5:27, “That he (Christ) might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.”

My life, even my wrinkles, is in the capable hands of God.