When I'm Old and Grey

One day I set out on an adventure

and hiked all alone at the day’s closing.

The sun was setting as the moon peeked out

Above the curtain of the horizon.

Up and up I climbed till I looked below

And saw the beauty of the pale valley.

Then sense pricked my mind—I should not be here

Where no one would know to look if I died.

When I’m old and grey, what will I look back

And find in the past decades of my life?

Surely there will be mundane days that turn

To weeks, plowing the fields of stability.

Yet those mundane days will be lost in the

Wounds of deep sorrows—healed, though they remain—

Dark pieces of glass contrasted against

The opalescent joys of my short life.

How will I spend the time I have left here?

Life, a mist that vanishes as the dawn,

A fleeting shadow you can barely see—

That is the truth of what my life will be.

Will I spend it searching for adventure

Only to find myself alone at life’s end

just as I once did on that lonely peak,

silent and still in dusky twilight?

If I have the chance to be old and grey,

With the last few breaths left inside of me

I’ll sing a new song each and every day

and tell the stories of God’s faithfulness.