Birthday number 65 has arrived, so here's an article already written:
For
a small amount of perspective at this moment, imagine you were born in
1900.
When you are 14, World War I starts, and ends on your 18th
birthday with 22 million people killed.
Later in the year, a Spanish Flu
epidemic hits the planet and runs until you are 20. Fifty million
people die from it in those two years. Yes, 50 million.
When you're 29,
the Great Depression begins. Unemployment hits 25%, global GDP drops
27%. That runs until you are 33. The country nearly collapses along with
the world economy.
When you turn 39, World War II starts. You aren’t
even over the hill yet. When you're 41, the United States is fully
pulled into WWII. Between your 39th and 45th birthday, 75 million people
perish in the war and the Holocaust kills six million.
At 52, the
Korean War starts and five million perish.
At 64, the Vietnam War begins,
and it doesn’t end for many years. Four million people die in that
conflict.
Approaching your 62nd birthday you have the Cuban Missile
Crisis, a tipping point in the Cold War. Life on our planet, as we know
it, could well have ended. Great leaders prevented that from happening.
As you turn 75, the Vietnam War finally ends.
Think of everyone on the
planet born in 1900. How do you survive all of that? A kid in 1985
didn’t think their 85 year old grandparent understood how hard school
was. Yet those grandparents (and now great grandparents) survived
through everything listed above. Perspective is an amazing art. Let’s
try and keep things in perspective. Let’s be smart, help each other out,
and we will get through all of this.
In the history of the world,
there has never been a storm that lasted. This, too, shall pass.
Psalm 22:27-28: “All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the Lord, and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before thee. For the kingdom is the Lord's, and he ruleth among the nations.”
9 comments:
Happy Birthday Reverend!
It is quite a thought. My grandparents were born in the 1910's so not quite there, but some of them did live to see the end of the Cold War and space missions returning to the planet.
I, by contrast, can merely point to living before home computers and cell phones existed and seeing the rise and fall of an entire industry (movie rentals).
Happy Birthday, Reverend!
That doesn't look like Alaska in your header... ;-)
God willing, this too shall pass.
You all be safe and God bless.
TB, I hear you. My paternal grandfather was born in 1876, traveling to Missouri in the 1880s with his parents in a covered wagon. He lived to see the first couple of spaceflights, passing in 1961.
Linda, the header is Fort Shafter, Honolulu. And the Bible says "it came to pass", not "it came to stay." :)
All I have to add is that insulin was first invented in 1929, got out to patients in 1930. So if you had diabetes before then, you were dead about 2 years after being diagnosed.
Happy Birthday Rev!! Wishing you many more! :)
Thank you, Suz. :)
Belated happy birthday!
Thank you, ma'am. :)
Belated Happy Birthday, and thanks for the wonderful post!
Thank you, my friend, and you're very welcome.
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