{"id":1514,"date":"2015-01-19T00:37:32","date_gmt":"2015-01-19T00:37:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/?p=1514"},"modified":"2015-01-09T00:51:43","modified_gmt":"2015-01-09T00:51:43","slug":"food-for-thought-never-too-old","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/2015\/01\/food-for-thought-never-too-old.html","title":{"rendered":"Food for Thought: Never Too Old"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Photo<\/a>
Photo courtesy of koratmember\/FreeDigitalPhotos.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the Christmas holidays, I was blessed to see Angela Lansbury in the play, “Blythe Spirit.” It was amazing – Dame Lansbury, a celebrated British-American actress whose career spans decades and includes television, film, and the stage, is 89 years old…or, I will say…young!<\/p>\n

The part Dame Lansbury plays, the colorful and eccentric Madame Arcati, is physically and mentally demanding, requiring agility, tough dialogue transitions (Madame Arcati digresses quite a bit!), and the whole performance was terrific. And utterly inspiring.<\/p>\n

True, Dame Lansbury has been performing for most of her life, and she’s no stranger to the stage and its demands. But beyond the obvious and impressive fact that she performs the show 8 times a week, and splendidly, there is the \u00a0other fact that is really encouraging and uplifting – it was clear that Dame Lansbury thoroughly enjoys what she does!<\/p>\n

It has to be hard to do what she does and to do it so well. I cannot imagine she gets through without some aches and pains. But when you love to do something, I imagine that those troubles don’t seem so grand and gratitude must wash away any discomfort.<\/p>\n

I came away from the play so very inspired that, when God gives gifts, He means for us to use them throughout our lives. Put another way, I can’t imagine telling God, “Okay. Enough. I’m retiring from serving you!”<\/p>\n

Truly, when we do say “yes” to serving with our gifts, God will give us opportunities – no matter how old (or young) we are!<\/p>\n

Joy and peace,<\/p>\n

Maureen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Over the Christmas holidays, I was blessed to see Angela Lansbury in the play, “Blythe Spirit.” It was amazing – Dame Lansbury, a celebrated British-American actress whose career spans decades and includes television, film, and the stage, is 89 years old…or, I will say…young! The part Dame Lansbury plays, the colorful and eccentric Madame Arcati,…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":548,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,360,43,1242,1047,578,383,1245,1236,1247,1421],"tags":[1452,1456,1457,1455,1453,1454],"class_list":["post-1514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chronic-pain-and-illness","category-determination","category-encouragement-in-life","category-food-for-thought","category-good","category-goodness","category-heart-health","category-positive","category-prayer-2","category-rising-above-tragedy","category-take-some-time-to-rest","tag-angela-lansbury","tag-chronic-illness-and-happiness","tag-chronic-illness-and-working","tag-never-retiring","tag-never-too-old","tag-working-when-youre-older"],"yoast_head":"\nFood for Thought: Never Too Old - Good Days...Bad Days With Maureen Pratt<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/2015\/01\/food-for-thought-never-too-old.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Food for Thought: Never Too Old - Good Days...Bad Days With Maureen Pratt\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Over the Christmas holidays, I was blessed to see Angela Lansbury in the play, “Blythe Spirit.” It was amazing – Dame Lansbury, a celebrated British-American actress whose career spans decades and includes television, film, and the stage, is 89 years old…or, I will say…young! 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She expected to be writing scripts. God had other plans. A few years after her graduation, Maureen was diagnosed with a life-threatening case of organ-involved lupus. Her life turned upside down as she grappled with the effects of the illness and other health conditions that ensued. She was no stranger to serious health challenges; even as a child, Maureen had survived numerous bouts of pneumonia, flu, and other infections. But lupus made her take a fresh look at her life goals - and took herlifelong, strong Catholic Christian faith and writing in a direction she'd never imagined. Today, Maureen writes and speaks about walking with the Lord while living with chronic pain and illness. Her most recent book is \"Don't Panic!: How to Keep Going When the Going Gets Tough (Franciscan Media). She is also the author of, \"Peace in the Storm: Meditations on Chronic Pain & Illness\" (Image Books\/Randomhouse), \"Beyond Pain: Job, Jesus, and Joy\" (Twenty-Third Publications), \"The First Year: Hypothyroidism, Second Edition\" (Perseus) and \"Taking Charge of Lupus: How to Manage the Disease and Make the Most of Your LIfe.\" She writes the syndicated column, \"Living Well,\" for Catholic News Service, and has also written for Saint Anthony Messenger Magazine, Journey for Women Magazine, The Upper Room Magazine, LupusNow, and Arthritis Today. Maureen's health continues to be a challenge, however she feels honored to be able to bring her perspective, from experience and knowledge, to others. \"Good Days...Bad Days with Maureen Pratt\" is a new way for Maureen to reach people who carry the burden of illness and pain in their lives, or who care for someone who does. Through the blog, she hopes to bring issues of health, wellness, and spirit into focus and, especially, inspire others that, no matter what health challenges, illness, or hardships they endure, each person can find a good way to realize the wonderful potential God has placed within each heart and soul.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.maureenpratt.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/author\/mpratt"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/548"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1514"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1515,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1514\/revisions\/1515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/gooddaysbaddays\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}