As the years pass by, not only will the children go, but the bills will too. (Your money adds up when you don't have to spend it on your children anymore.) This is especially true if you saved and exercised "delayed gratification" while you were young.

In other words, if you waited and saved up money to purchase things instead of buying them up front, you probably have everything you want by now - and debt-free!

For example, in the ideal situation, your house is paid off, you've finished putting your kids through college, and you have enough money set aside to buy a car (with cash!) if you wanted to.

So everything is pretty much in place. But you may start to reevaluate your life at this point and think, "Why am I working so hard then? I have plenty of money. I don't need to do all this."

When children are no longer in the home, people sometimes go through a time of reassessment when they ask themselves, "Do I really need to work anymore?"

That's usually when they decide if they want to retire, take a sabbatical, or whatever. This happens many times in cases where the woman was only working to help out with the bills.

But whether the decision to retire is voluntary or involuntary, there's a sense of loss that accompanies it.

If your reason for working was to provide for your family and do the best you could for your employer, then once the children are out of the picture and your employer is gone, you might lose your sense of meaning and purpose or struggle with feelings of no longer being useful to society.

That's why you need to retire to something instead of from something.

Enjoy Your New Season
A Christian has no business looking back, anyway. What are you going to look back for? You can't change the things that are behind you. So just forget them and keep pressing forward to the new seasons of life that God has for you.

To every thing there is a season, and a time for every matter or purpose under heaven.
(Eccl. 3:1 AMP)

When you've been obedient to God, you can look forward with excitement and great anticipation to each new season in life that He gives you.

God always brings us into a wider place. You'll be blessed going in and blessed going out (Deut. 28:6).

You can't help but be blessed when you've been a good steward over the two most prized relationships that God has entrusted to you - the marriage and family.

There is a blessing in developing a total marriage and maintaining harmony in your home. There's a blessing in knowing that you've produced godly seed and that your children are bringing up their children in the ways of the Lord.

There's a blessing in being able to follow God's will for your life in ministry with your family instead of at their expense.

But the biggest blessing of all has to be the joy of coming full circle in your journey with a lifetime of rich memories and a mate who's still committed, still loving, and still standing by your side.

Source: Establishing Godly Relationships Through Marriage and Family
by Deborah L. Butler
Excerpt permission granted by Word Of Faith Publishing