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I met my friend Karen in highschool in San Diego, California. Because our families went to different churches, our parents never really got to know each other very well. Karen and I continued our friendship long after highschool. In the course of our lives, my husband and I moved with our children to Michigan. Shortly thereafter my parents moved to be near us. In the providence of God, Karen and her family moved into the same community and soon her parents followed her. In the last year of their lives, our parents lived down the hall from each other in an assisted living facility.
Karen and I spend a lot of time on that hall. We did a lot of talking about what we could do to help our children when one day they would need to care for us. We started making a list. Here is that list - not in any particular order.
Be thankful to every person who helps me
Smile 🙂
Be selective to whom you describe your aches and pains
Spend more time thinking about heaven than listening to current event news
Don’t say negative things about “the world these days”
Encourage the next generation in God’s faithfulness
Say, “Maybe today?” with hope not impatience
When my kids want to make a decision for me, let them
When my kids say I shouldn't drive, I shouldn’t.
Play music
Remember that people outside my house have schedules or routines. Their delayed response in not due to unkindness
When food loses it flavor or the temperature is all wrong, or categories of food are removed from my diet, focus on feasting the in the house of Zion
With each sip of water, remember the water that Jesus gives that springs up into everlasting life
Remember that as long as I live, God almighty bends down to my humble estate to hear my prayers
My fight of faith is to trust God and rest in him
Do not doubt God’s goodness
Rehearse God’s promises
There is meaning in suffering if I showcase God’s glory.
I am not old, not yet. But I can feel old age in my bones, and it takes a little longer to find details in the hard drive of my brain. There are new aches and pains that greet me in the morning or after a walk. I know all sorts of limitations are coming. The world would have me believe I can stop the aging process. But the fountain of youth is a myth. “When the world tells us, as it does, that everyone has a right to a life that is easy, comfortable, and relatively pain-free, a life that enables us to discover, display and deploy all the strengths that are latent within us, the world twists the truth right out of shape” (J. I. Packer , Weakness).
I found encouragement this week in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. He was probably my age when he wrote it. He was sitting in a Roman prison. I am in a beautiful home in Georgia. His aches and pains were significant. Mine are only bothersome. But he is rejoicing and I am complaining. How was his perspective different from mine?
“ . . . as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.” (Phil. 1:20,21)
My mom used to say that growing old was not for the faint of heart. Can we turn that to a positive? Growing old takes courage. Full courage. Courage to honor Christ in our physical bodies that experience more and more limitations and pain.
We can not deny the effects that old age has on our bodies. We can still honor Christ in our bodies.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ
who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the
Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. (Gal. 2:21).
We honor Christ by living for him. By serving him in whatever capacity we have. By praising him whether in public or private. By accepting what he deems right to put into our path because we believe he in his wisdom will only give us that which is best for us.
My mother-in-law is ninety-one this year. Her limitations are greater than mine, and she may have many more years of living with physical and mental constraints. Still she serves God wholly by simply trusting him in the place he has put her.
All of us have been designed purposefully by God with needs, weaknesses, limitations, frailties and vulnerabilities so that we would live a life of trust and dependence. So that He would be honored as we live for him even in the years of our weakening human bodies. Wouldn’t it be interesting if as my “to-do” lists get shorter, my energy and strength lessen, and I am kindly forced to focus on resting in Christ, that I actually accomplish so much more that is eternally significant?
“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our
inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction
is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison,
as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.
For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen
are eternal. (2 Cor. 4:16-18).
We also honor Christ by believing that being with Christ will be better than life. As long as we are physically able, we can call to mind the treasure of Christ. We can focus our attention on the things we can not see. We can declare his worth by desiring to be with Christ knowing it will be far better than anything we have experienced here.
What kind of old person do you want to be?
I want to be a courageous old woman who honors Christ in her body no matter what comes.