The expression that nature abhors a vacuum is especially true as we age: clutter, both material and mental, expands to fill our time and our lives. Those of us who are often in e-mail can attest to that as our boxes fill up frequently. A lot of stuff floating around the internet is the same old, same old, but occasionally something special comes along. Such is the story that I share with you. (No author’s name was attached—if you know you wrote it, please let us know and we’ll credit him.) What I especially enjoy about it is its universal application. It’s the advice of an older man to a younger, but its wisdom is applicable to women just as much as to men.

As I read it I thought of what Moses wrote long ago: “The length of our days is seventy years—or eighty, if we have the strength; yet their span is but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:10,12 NIV). This story helped remind me to number my days. Maybe it will do the same for you:

“The older I get, the more I enjoy Saturday mornings. Perhaps it’s the quiet solitude that comes with being the first to rise, or maybe it’s the unbounded joy of not having to be at work. Either way, the first few hours of a Saturday morning are most enjoyable.

A few weeks ago, I was shuffling toward the garage with a steaming cup of coffee in one hand and the morning paper in the other.  What began as a typical Saturday morning turned into one of those lessons that life seems to hand you from time to time. Let me tell you about it:

I turned the dial up into the phone portion of the band on my ham radio in order to listen to a Saturday morning swap net.  Along the way, I came across an older sounding chap, with a tremendous signal and a golden voice. You know the kind; he sounded like he should be in the broadcasting business.  He was telling whomever he was talking with something about “a thousand marbles.” I was intrigued and stopped to listen.

“Well, Tom,” the older man said, “it sure sounds like you’re busy with your job. I’m sure they pay you well but it’s a shame you have to be away from home and your family so much. Hard to believe a young fellow should have to work 60 or 70 hours a week to make ends meet.  It’s too bad you missed your daughter’s dance recital. Let me tell you something that has helped me keep my own priorities.”

That’s when he began to explain his theory of “a thousand marbles.” “You see,” he said. “I sat down one day and did a little arithmetic.  The average person lives about 75 years. I know, some live more and some live less, but on average, folks live about 75 years. Now then, I multiplied 75 times 52 and I came up with 3900, which is the number of Saturdays that the average person has in their entire lifetime. Now, stick with me, Tom, I’m getting to the important part.

“It took me until I was 55 years old to think about all this in any detail”, he went on, “and by that time I had lived through over 2800 Saturdays. I got to thinking that if I lived to be 75, I only had about 1000 of them left to enjoy.  So I went to a toy store and bought every single marble they had. I ended up having to visit three toy stores to round up 1000 marbles. I took them home and put them inside a large clear plastic container.”

“Every Saturday since then, I have taken one marble out and thrown it away. I found that by watching the marbles diminish, I focused more on the really important things in life. There is nothing like watching your time here on this earth run out to help get your priorities straight.”

“Now let me tell you one last thing before I sign-off with you and take my lovely wife out for breakfast. This morning, I took the very last marble out of the container. I figure that if I make it until next Saturday, then I have been given a little extra time. And the one thing we can all use is a little more time.”

“It was nice to meet you Tom, I hope you spend more time with your family, and I hope to meet you again here on the band.  This is a 75 year-old man, K9NZQ, clear and going QRT, good morning!”

You could have heard a pin drop on the band when this fellow signed off. I guess he gave us all a lot to think about. I had planned to work on the antenna that morning, and then I was going to meet up with a few hams to work on the next club newsletter. Instead, I went upstairs and woke my wife up with a kiss. “C’mon honey. I’m taking you to breakfast.”

“What brought this on?” she asked with a smile. “Oh, nothing special, it’s just been a long time since we spent a Saturday together. And hey, can we stop at a toy store while we’re out? I need to buy some marbles.”

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When I was younger with small children, my husband occasionally came home from work to me bombarding him with talk. Once he said to me, “Talk to adults much?” and laughed.

I said, “No! And that’s the problem.”

I was not amused.

My husband learned that there were times I needed to unload. And he needed to listen and not tell me how to fix it.

Everyone says that children grow up too soon. And it’s true. You turn around and they’re gone. Not gone to the ends of the earth (usually) but irrevocably gone to jobs and homes and families of their own. Then, according to surveys we fill out about who lives in our home, we are childless.

“Empty nest” is one of the few completely descriptive terms in the English language. If the home you raised your children in was the right kind of home, it was like a nest:  a place of provision and protection. The children were sheltered under your wings and kept secure until they were old enough to move on. Human mothers often resist this phase, but in nature not so much. The mother eagle sometimes pushes the eaglets out of the nest to teach them to fly. They learn quickly as they’re falling. And she swoops under them and catches them if they’re slow learners.

Whether our eaglets fall, glide, or soar out of our nests, eventually our nests become “empty.” That too is descriptive: not just of the amount of unoccupied space in our homes but of the feeling we can have: the empty feeling that our family is gone. Unfortunately, we sometimes translate that feeling into the idea that our usefulness is gone. The freedom that many women think they will enjoy with an empty nest isn’t realized because they are too wrapped up in what used to be to enjoy what currently is.

If that feeling is indulged, instead of enjoying the freedom to do new things, a woman finds she doesn’t know what to do. Some make a serious mistake at this point by infringing on their children’s freedom with too many phone calls, letters, unsolicited advice or visits.

From ancient times up until the early part of the 20^th century, women had many children. Because people had shorter life spans, often before the youngest child was raised to adulthood, the mother (by then in her 50s) died. Gradually family size became much smaller, and childrearing was finished earlier, often in a woman’s 40s. At the same time life spans increased: women began living into their 70s.

Women were faced with a question: What will you do with the next approximately 30 years of life when you are no longer raising a family?

Those who have the most problems with their empty nests are often those who weren’t prepared to face those years. They considered their occupation and calling to be a stay-at-home mother. Then their job grew up and left them. It was an empty nest indeed!

When this happens, women often feel as unemployed as if they’d received a pink slip from a corporation. Only worse! People can go out and get another job. Rarely do women decide to or are physically able to start having more babies to replenish their family.

So I’ll ask you the question I asked myself many years ago: what do you want to be (not when you grow up but) when your kids grow up? I’m not urging you to have a second career plan to fall back on; I’m urging you to think about how to wisely fill the years the Lord gives you after your childrearing duties are over.

Having an empty nest returns you to the identity you had B.C. (before children). You are more than just your husband’s wife and your children’s mother.  You are your heavenly Father’s daughter, and that doesn’t change. He has plans for you even in the later years of your life. His will for you might include a career in the workplace or in a ministry or increased volunteer work in your church. It could mean honing a creative skill or talent you only dabbled at before. But it should also include growing closer to God and becoming a mature example of His grace.

Moses lived to be 120, but the last 40 years (the last third of his lifetime) were the productive years. During those years he followed God and led the children of Israel (often wayward children) out of bondage in Egypt. A line in one of the two psalms he wrote could also be the prayer of every woman who faces a changing life season. In Psalm 90:12 (NIV), Moses prayed: “Teach us to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom.”

My prayer for all whose nests are empty is that your hearts may be full — full of godly wisdom.