Stepped out from the cafeteria at my working place, I ran into a manager that I used to work with. Looked at his radiant appearance, I asked,
“You look great, how are you doing recently?”
“Very well, very well, I am now in T2R.” He responded.
“T2R?” I puzzled.
“Transition to Retirement”, he answered.
“Oh, I see; one more new terminology for me today.” I smiled.

T2R is a program that offered by my working company to a qualified employee. The idea is to give the employee a period of time to plan and to adjust his / her living style for the upcoming retirement while working for only part time. The benefit to the company is aimed for expenses reduction.

The key concept to the T2R is “transition”. It is supposed to minimize any possible stress for a person due to “sudden change” of living style because of retirement. If we ponder on this concept a little bit more, we could find that our life journey is essentially a “process of transition” – a process for us to transition from our birth to the end of our life, in this world. And the truth of this life is as Moses said, “the best of them are but trouble and sorrow, for they quickly pass, and we fly away. 其中所矜誇的不過是勞苦愁煩；轉眼成空，我們便如飛而去 (Psalm 90:10)”. King Solomon, in his life-long experience, also sighed, “What do people gain from all their labors at which they toil under the sun? 人一切的勞碌，就是他在日光之下的勞碌，有什麼益處呢？(Ecclesiastes 1:3)”. To our life, this seems to paint a rather gloomy picture. Hence, the T2R is at best considered to be a “temporary” relief to our trouble and sorrow in the end.

If our life is merely like Moses and Solomon described without a way out, then we certainly are hopeless and pitiful. However, God does grant us a way out, which I called “Transition to Glory (T2G)”. It is a transition with a glorious hope of everlasting life without pain and sorrow and, being able to stay with glorious God forever. The T2G is offered to everyone in this world and can only be achieved by receiving God’s Son, Jesus Christ, as our personal savior. When you enroll into the T2G program, your journey in this world would become a different transitional process and your true retirement location will be “heaven”. In there, there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain. Isn’t this a true retirement should be?

Therefore, my dear friends, there are two type of transitions in our life. One is Transition to Death (T2D) after your T2R and the other is Transition to Glory (T2G). The question is: Which one do you want to choose for your retirement? Hope you realize that T2G is far better than T2D after T2R.

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Disclaimer: The sharing is pure from my personal view; therefore, please don’t take it to be absolute. Thanks.