What Age Didn't Bring

I am getting older.
So are you, in case you didn't know.

Now, I have expectations for aging.
I know that I will likely lose skin and muscle tone.  I may develop health problems and wrinkles.  I will feel different, look different.
And I also thought that I would have more leisure.

I truly expected to have long hours for contemplation, days in which I could find the kind of peace that allow for sweet silent worship, but it hasn't come.
Instead, the world stirs itself into disorder all around me and while it does, I must live in it, like a chunk of carrot continually bubbling up from the bottom of a furiously boiling pot of soup.
Shut it off, I think.  Shut it off or it will burn.

Little by little, the world is taking on hell's cacophony.

I can find islands of quiet and peace in this world, but all around them, disorder mounts.
I should have expected this, but somehow, well, didn't.  The world disintegrates around my refuge, pressing itself to destruction and, as it does, the people around me need more, draw closer.  The world falls apart as the demand on God's people increase.
How long, Lord? Will you forget me forever?  How long will you hide your face from me? How long must I wrestle with my thoughts and day after day have sorrow in my heart? How long will my enemy triumph over me?--Psalm 13:1-2

Still, God is there, whether peace and stillness comes or not.
But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord’s praise for he has been good to me.--Psalm 13:5-6

The battle may pause between actions, but no long rest will come.  Not now.
The only rest we will know waits at the end of all things.
My job is not to defeat the enemy.  God has already done that.
My battle is to follow Him to the end.