It happened in the month of my fiftieth birthday and after 24-3/4 years of service. I was downsized, redundant, expendable. Now it's six years later and last October 1, I started my first full-time job.

They say life begins at fifty. Well, I'll agree with that. I had to start all over again: the employment office, the libraries, the counsellors, the resumes, even back to school at fifty. I had to learn to get rid of the three flaming C's and replace them with the three C's of the Son. I had to deliberately and consciously check myself when one of the three flaming "C's", Complaining, Criticizing and Condemning, was my response, and to replace them with the 3 "C's" of the Son: Cradle [love, joy, peace, patience]; Cross [service, commitment, self-sacrifice]; Crown [forgiveness, victory, eternal life].

Daily devotions and old familiar hymns kept the hope alive and the spirits up. One important devotional was called Daniel: Strength to Pray. I memorized it as Daniel's five P's Persistence in Prayer, a Place for Prayer, a Plan for Prayer, a Posture for Prayer and the Practice of Prayer. Favourite hymns that I hummed were You Must Open the Door and Trust and Obey.

In six years and as many part time jobs, I learned that happiness is a choice, that prayers need feet, and that an attitude of gratitude is best.

Prayer: Loving Father, thank You for providing all the necessities, the strength, and the hope required while prayers are being answered. Thank You for the many devotional writers, editors and songwriters who inspire others. There's no greater comfort than knowing that You hold us firm in your hand regardless of our situation. Amen.

L I V E — four letters that we all know the meaning of. We are very much alive today, and we are glad we are alive. We want to keep on living. But there is such a thing as living right.

L I V E is an amazing word. For instance, if we reverse the letters we have EVIL. If we don't live the right way, doing things backwards or the wrong way, we become evil. If we take the E and move it to the end we get VILE. When we do not live right we usually go from bad to worse, until we become vile (hateful, vicious). Another move of the E and the result is the word VEIL, which obscures, hides, separates us from our family, friends and God. God is hidden from us.

There is an important letter in L I V E that make it possible to form all these other words. It is the letter I: the selfish I, the me, myself I. When we think so much of ourselves, we forget all about God and about others.

When we replace I with O for "others", L I V E becomes L O V E! Try as we might, we cannot make anything bad out of love. Those four letters spell LOVE and nothing else but LOVE. When we think more of others we will LIVE IN LOVE.

Prayer: Gracious Father, Loving Son, ever-present Holy Spirit, help us to think more of others so we can be more like Jesus who gave his life that others may live. Amen.