It was supposed to be the time of peace, love, freedom and happiness in 1969 when I graduated from the University of Iowa with a degree in journalism. And we all believed it, even though the Vietnam War was tearing the country apart. We knew it could be different so we challenged everything. Then I married Jane on the 4th of July. It was strange in some ways to get married on Independence Day but the church was available that day and I figured I'd never forget our anniversary.

The prediction was that our marriage would never last, but 38 years and two daughters later we're still together, although we've moved 14 times trying to decide what we want to do when we grow up and where we want to do it.

We tried to wear flowers in our hair in Berkeley and San Francisco the first year we were married as I went to Seminary. Flowers in our hair weren't all they were cracked up to be, and besides, we both had allergies. We spent almost five years in Iowa and Minnesota with me working on a newspaper and then for a wire service. Then I slipped totally to the dark side and went to law school. On the bright side, our two daughters were born in Minnesota, and we hid what their daddy did for a living from them as long as we could. I practiced privately for several years and spent the next 27 years working as a civilian attorney for the Army. I call it my beige period.

When I was given an opportunity to retire early in 2006, I took about thirty seconds to think about whether I should walk away from a secure, decent paying job with benefits, and then I ran as fast as I could. I have not always been the most decisive person in the world. (Exhibit A: 14 moves in 38 years.) But I never looked back and have never been surer about anything I did with the exception of marrying Jane.

Since then I have been reading and writing love stories from a man's point of view. I would call them romances, but that connotes a formula, and I just can't stay within the formula. I have the same trouble with recipes. As I've been writing, I have also been irritating the American Christian Fiction Writers group, sometimes accidentally, sometimes on purpose. A lawyer cannot shed his stripes overnight. I mean it all it good fun, and most of them get it. Some don't.

Regardless, largely because of the ACFW and a spin off group of misfits, and I use that term lovingly, I now know what I want to be for the rest of my life. My second calling as a writer of Christian love stories has become my passion, and I find myself working longer than I ever have in my life, even though it doesn't seem like it. Time blasts by when you're doing what you love.

In a way, my second calling is really a return to my original one: doing what God wants me to do. Except now I understand what that means better. For all those years I had asked the wrong question. I shouldn't have been asking God to show me what I should do with my life. That's about me. What I should have said was what Samuel said, "Here I am, Lord, use me."

That's how I try to write now. I put my fingers on the keys and say, here I am Holy Spirit, move my fingers and tell Your story. Some days my fingers move better than other days, and I listen better sometimes than I do other times, but at least now I know what my ministry is.

I want to challenge fellow Baby Boomers, men, and those who want to know more about the way men see things to take that leap by digging deeper into the Christian walk and getting beneath the pat answers for the safe questions and find the awesome, life changing power of the Holy Spirit, and the life we can lead if He runs it.

Too many people in my generation lost their way in the rebellious spirit of the 60's and threw out the good with the bad. We thought we were so intellectual, so clever, and so smart, and we had dreams of a better world, a world we were so certain we could create all by ourselves.

Now we stand at the precipice of retirement feeling empty, wondering where all the time went and why we didn't accomplish more, when we had the answer all along. "All You Need is Love," was a popular song when we were younger, and it's still true, but we have to put God back into that sentence, fixing what we broke when we took Him out.

If Baby Boomers have proved one thing, it's that we can't do it our way, we have to do it His way, or we end up with nothing standing next to the fool on the hill. After all, how can we ever hope to know Love, if we reject its Author.

It is never too late to soar on wings like eagles, no matter where you've been or what you've done or left undone. All you need to know is where the updrafts are.

Dennis Bates