Hello my friends, here’s Mary Naegeli popping up in “the room next door” to Bringing the Word to Life. Life in the last two years has been a bit of a wild ride, and I find myself in the position of having to undergo a personal renovation. I continue to “bring the Word to life” in fulfillment of my fundamental calling as a Christian and a minister, and I will continue to add posts there when the point is particularly biblical in nature. But here on Cut Tulips, I want to process the construction project God is working in my soul, not because it is unique but because it is so common to people of a certain age.
In the days and weeks to come I will share what is on my mind and what generates the questions, “What kind of life to I want to live? and How do I want to be?” Not new questions, but the answers may turn out to be bit different than I might have given even ten years ago. I don’t want to keep you in suspense, so up front, I am 68 years old and officially retired. I am still happily married to my dear husband Andy, and any answer to the above questions are always in rhythm with our basic marriage covenant. I have had no recurrence of lung cancer, now eight years out from my diagnosis in November 2013, so you don’t need to worry about that! But I am aging, as all of you are—and at the same rate! And we’re thinking about things like moving into a one-story house because our knees are going, evaluating our bucket list, and otherwise anticipating lifestyle changes due to physical limitations of age and the requirements of this stage of life.
To contain this new bouquet of tulips, with the timely help of my web guru Tom Jackson I have established this second blog called Cut Tulips. The name comes from the observation that the tulip is the only flower that continues to grow even after it has been cut. My life is a nosegay of prunings and setbacks, and yet here I am, still growing, still reaching for light, and yes, getting a little pale and spindly. Growing in faith, growing in wisdom, growing in relationships . . . and trending toward what I hope is maturity.