Grown Children, Gray-haired and Graced - Chapter 12

This is the twelth and last chapter in the series on Opening Your Hands - The Art of Letting Go. This is the chapter that I am living in these days. By God's grace, I want to live contentedly, quietly and fruitfully in the fear of the Lord as long as He gives me breath.

 I trust that you will be rewarded for the effort of reading. Take time to work through the questions at the end, slowly reading and pondering the truth in the verses. God's word will comfort and correct.

And Please read through to The Mother's Prayer at the end. Perhaps the pouring out of my heart to the Lord will help you to put into words the cry of your heart.

“The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair.”

Prov. 20:29.

“Better is a handful of quietness than two hands full of toil and striving after the wind.” Ecclesiastes 4:6

“If I demand to understand God's ways with me in the past, if I insist on knowing exactly what God is doing in the present and what he plans to do with my future, my ambition is to be equal with God.  I will never be content. . . . .

Contentment is the distinct fruit of having no higher ambition than to belong to the Lord and to be totally at his disposal, in the place he appoints, at the time he chooses, with the provision he is pleased to make.”

In Christ Alone, Sinclair B. Ferguson

In the first act, get your principal character up a tree; in the second act, throw stones at him; in the third, get him down gracefully."

Robert Batten

“When we put down our pen, stop trying to write our story or the stories of others and wholeheartedly trust the author of our story to write his gospel story in our lives, we begin to see the mundane and the miserable moments as essential sentences that eventually become a majestic story of grace, because the plot of dirt where we die is also the place where we flourish.” Aging with Grace, Susan Hunt.

Those who die daily, will die easily.”

Spurgeon

I have heard it said that one's life can be viewed as a play in three acts. Act One sets the scene and introduces the characters. Consider this as birth to young adulthood - zero to thirty. Act Two is where the focus is on the main character’s pursuit of a goal and the obstacles she must overcome along the way, as well as her own inner transformation. This sounds a lot like active parenting to me! Let’s call this thirty to sixty (give or take a few years.) Act Three is the final test and resolution. All that has been learned comes to fruitfulness. This can be likened to the years after children have left the home. To keep the pattern going, this would be sixty to ninety. Given this framework, most empty nesters are in Act Three. This fact alone will help us to number our days!  

I have had the privilege of walking both of my parents and my husband's parents on their last steps into heaven. Experiencing the reality of death up close can also help us to number our days. This last year, a group of women and I were studying the life of Joseph. The last several chapters of Genesis are all about death and funerals. As a project, I suggested to the women that they think about their own funerals. What songs would they want sung? What scripture read? What words would they like on their tombstones? A little somber? Yes - but a way to count your days.

In the providence of God, my parents were living out their last days down the hall from the parents of a very good friend. 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.

1. Be thankful to every person who helps me

2. Smile 🙂

3. Be selective to whom you describe your aches and pains 

4. Spend more time thinking about heaven than listening to current event news

5. Don’t say negative things about “the world these days”

6. Encourage the next generation in God’s faithfulness

7. Say, “Maybe today?” with hope not impatience

8. When my kids want to make a decision for me, let them

9. When my kids say I shouldn't drive, I shouldn’t.

10. Play music

11. Remember that people outside my house have schedules or routines. Their delayed response in not due to unkindness

12. 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

13. With each sip of water, remember the water that Jesus gives that springs up into everlasting life

14. Remember that as long as I live, God almighty bends down to my humble estate to hear my prayers

15. My fight of faith is to trust God and rest in him

16. Do not doubt God’s goodness

17. Rehearse God’s promises

18. There is meaning in suffering if I showcase God’s glory. 

The Glory of Old Women

Solomon tells us. “The glory of young men is their strength, but the splendor of old men is their gray hair.” (Prov. 20:29). Not every gray haired woman is wise. But there is wisdom that only comes from experience. If grace has been a part of the living out of those experiences, the wisdom is sound. There is also a wisdom that comes from numbering one's days. “So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.”  (Psalm 90:12). It is easier to count the remaining days when they are fewer in number. 

As I have aged, one of the books of wisdom in the Bible has become more meaningful to me. The Book of Ecclesiastes. The preacher in Ecclesiastes asks the questions one has to be old enough, or tired enough, to slow down and ask them. The answers he gives only make sense to those old enough, or tired enough, to be willing to pay attentions

I was always the kind of person who looked at life as a Rubik’s Cube I had to figure out. When life didn’t make sense - and how seldom it does! - I was frustrated. Steve preached through Ecclesiastes fifteen years ago. Our pastor preached through it two summers ago. I have now  read several books on it. I may be beginning to “see” what I am supposed to see. God is god and I am not. God is limitless and I am not. God is sovereign and I am not. God controls the seasons and I can not. God is the creator and I am a creature. God is also good. He gives good gifts for me to enjoy. And He is just. All will be well in the end. 

Under the sun where I am now living, time is fleeting, life is crooked, outcomes are unpredictable and death is certain. It is delusional to think I can change any of that. I cannot be The Master of my fate. 

This I know: 

The Sovereign Creator, Most Wise and Good God holds me in his hands and has given me gifts to enjoy and skills to employ while I live out my days that He has ordained. I will not disparage his character or his care by decadent fatalism or grumpy stoicism. On the contrary, I will live simply, contentedly, Coram Deo, finding meaning to life by joyfully accepting His gifts and acting out my role as directed - eating and drinking, working and playing, learning and loving  -  expecting any day to meet The Gracious Author of the script face to face. 

The preacher of Ecclesiastes teaches me to fear the Lord. There is found the beginning of wisdom. Wisdom that we need to age well. The fear of the Lord is what makes an old woman glorious.

The Limitations of Old Women

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 want to wisely number my days so that I can use the next few years for the glory of God. This is what I have begun to ask myself: What do I need to begin to practice now, so that I will be full of grace and wisdom then?  

For example, I have always been an efficiency expert. Mr. Gilbreth, in the book Cheaper by the Dozen, has nothing on me. I was  always thinking six steps ahead of the moment. You know the state of the car and the people in the car as you pull into your driveway at the end of a long road trip?  I was famous, when pulling onto our street at the end of a trip, for giving instructions and assignments to each child on what to do the moment the car door opened. Efficiency is not that helpful now. There are only two of us getting out of the car these days. Often I have more time and flexibility in my day. Sometimes, I can’t keep eight instructions straight in my head. I have realized that a strength of my youth may be a hindrance to growing old gracefully. I need to learn to be content with doing one thing at a time. I need to learn how to be still in the moment. 

I am practicing stillness by not always being in a rush. I’m trying not to walk with my head and chest bent forward as if I’m already late somewhere. I’m taking more time to really listen to others, to listen to music, to listen to scripture read aloud. I’m learning stillness when sleep does not come easily. I reflect on something for which to be thankful, picturing the person, reliving in my thoughts the event. Sights, conversations, joys. I offer up to the Lord my thanksgivings as a praise for his kindness and generosity to me. 

My mother-in-law passed away last winter just before turning 92.  Her limitations had grown over the last years so that she had begun to live with physical and mental constraints. Still I am confident that she was able to serve God wholly by simply trusting him in the place he had 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. Isn’t that a huge part of what it means to “abide in him? (John 15:1-4). Abiding is not doing or accomplishing. It’s receiving from God what he gives. It’s believing that he is all I need. It is accepting that apart from Him I can do nothing. Wouldn’t it be interesting that as my “to-do” lists get shorter, my energy and strength lessen, and I am kindly forced to focus on abiding, that I actually accomplish so much more that is eternally significant?

The Suffering of Old Women

Often, the limitations we begin to experience as we age come paired with suffering. Though I whole-hearedly believed in God’s sovereign grace in saving me, I had secretly hoped that one day I would no longer need his sanctifying grace. I longed for a day when I wouldn’t have to struggle against sin. I wanted my life to get easier, less messy. After decades of serving him, my strength to fight the fight of faith seems to be  getting weaker. I imagined an age where I saw everything clearly, where all of life made sense and I began to live happily ever after. 

God in his kindness brought me face to face with this impenetrable mystery. Suffering always precedes Glory. (Romans 8:17). Jesus suffered first that I might follow in His steps by entrusting myself to God who judges justly. (1 Peter 2:21-23). Suffering is how God “fits us for heaven.” My tested faith will result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus comes back and I receive the inheritance being kept for me:  the salvation of my soul. (1 Peter 1: 3-9). Suffering is a significant part of the way God prepares us for the joy ahead of us. 

 “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. 4:17,18.

“Life is not a straight line leading from one blessing to the next and then finally to heaven. Life is like a winding and troubled road. Switchback after switchback. And the point of the biblical stories like Joseph, Job, Esther and Ruth is to help us feel in our bones (not just know in our heads) that God is for us in all these strange turns. God is not just showing up after the trouble and cleaning it up. He is plotting the course and managing the troubles with far-reaching purposes for our good and for the glory of Jesus Christ.” (John Piper, A Sweet and Bitter Providence: Sex, Race, and the Sovereignty of God.)

And we know that one day there will be:

Light after darkness.

Gain after loss.

Strength after weakness.

Crown after cross.

Sweet after bitter.

Hope after fears.

Home after wandering.

Praise after tears.

The Contented Old Woman

To be human is to have limitations. To age is to experience more limitations and the trials that may come with them. To age well is to be content with what God plans for your old age. Contentment is “a settled disposition to regard God’s gifts as sufficient and His assignments as appropriate.” (https://www.biblegateway.com/resources/encyclopedia-of-the-bible/Content) To know God is to live contentedly in a world that doesn't make sense because you know He knows. He knows everything that is happening, why it is happening, and what will come about  as a result. He knows because he is sovereignly and providentially orchestrating all things.  It is not ours, the creature, to wonder at what the Creator is doing. We are to be content with knowing He is wise and good. 

Psalm 131 is a picture of a soul that is calmed and quieted by acknowledging and accepting one's limitations and resting in the greatness and goodness and trustworthiness of God. David’s  heart is not lifted up; He is not proud. He doesn’t assume he is responsible for his giftedness or position. His eyes are not raised. He is not critical of others (eyes raised to look down on others)  or longing for more (eyes raised above his position - wanting more) He has not occupied himself with great and marvelous things. He is not overreaching or ambitious. David was content in the position where God placed him. David taught his soul not to demand, not to resist, and not to make accusations. He taught himself that God is wise and good and strong -  that his hope was in the Lord his God who is present and eternal. David calmed and quieted his soul by acknowledging and accepting his limitations (acknowledging He was not God) and resting in the greatness and goodness and trustworthiness of God (acknowledging God loves Him). 

God desires that we too be content. Content with every circumstance that He  has placed us in. Content knowing that He who began a good work in us will complete it. That glory will follow suffering. Content knowing that God has given gray haired women everything they need to please Him, to live well and be fruitful to the end of the final curtain in this life.

If you are reading this and responding indigently with “I’m not old yet!” Here is what you should be asking? What kind of old person do I want to be? What might I need to practice now to prepare for the third act? 

Thoughts to Ponder

“Listen to me, O house of Jacob,

    all the remnant of the house of Israel,

who have been borne by me from before your birth,

    carried from the womb;

even to your old age I am he,

    and to gray hairs I will carry you.

I have made, and I will bear;

    I will carry and will save.

Isaiah 46:3-5

1. What promises does the Lord make in these verses?

2. Ponder a moment how the Lord has carried you to this moment. Consider starting a list of his acts of mercy and kindness towards you. 
   

 “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain. Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.” Phil. 2:14-18.

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. 2 Cor. 12:9, 10.

3. What effects does grumbling and complaining have on one's character and witness?

4. In what situations or circumstances are you prone to self-pity and grumbling? Do your children and grandchildren know you to be a thankful person? Consider ways you can make thanksgiving a part of your daily routine. 

5. Why could Paul be happy about being “poured out” or why could he boast about his weaknesses?

“O Lord, make me know my end    and what is the measure of my days;    let me know how fleeting I am!Behold, you have made my days a few handbreadths,    and my lifetime is as nothing before you.Surely all mankind stands as a mere breath! SelahSurely a man goes about as a shadow!Surely for nothing they are in turmoil;    man heaps up wealth and does not know who will gather!“And now, O Lord, for what do I wait?    My hope is in you

.Psalm 39:4-7

6. Why does the Psalmist want to be reminded of the shortness of life?
   

7. Consider making a rough draft of your funeral service. What scriptures do you want to be read? What songs do you want to be sung? What do you want the theme of the sermon to be?

8. Have you ever written out your testimony? Consider doing this and storing it somewhere your children will have access to. What testimony do you want to leave of the Lord’s work in your life?
   

When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written:

“Death is swallowed up in victory.”

Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

1 Cor. 15: 54,58

9. What is our motivation for being steadfast?
   

10. What is the reward?

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,

    that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us,

    and for as many years as we have seen evil.

Let your work be shown to your servants,

    and your glorious power to their children. 

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us,

    and establish the work of our hands upon us;

    yes, establish the work of our hands! Psalm 90: 14-17

11. What can help you rejoice to the end of your days?
    

12. What do you want to pass on to your children?
    

13. What is in your hands during this 3rd Act?

A Mother’s Prayer

God, Maker of heaven and earth, Ruler of my days,

Until Your Son returns for His church or I take my last breath, I am going to continue to age. And I want to do so growing in grace and the fear of doing anything that would displease you or revile your word.

I have lived long enough to know that beauty is fleeting and charm is deceitful. Help me to take my focus off what I look like and how I feel.

Quiet the voice inside that says it is important what others think of me. Turn my focus  outward towards how I can help others live well and glorify you.

I have tried long enough to make sense of my world. I want to stop pretending I can do what only you can do. Help me see that rejoicing in your gifts, serving others and depending on you for daily grace is the hard work you have called me to do and the best way to be full of peace and joy.

Give me a quiet heart. Content with only what you decide is best. Content with my weaknesses. Content with the walls you place around me. Content with the sorrows you deem necessary for me.

Oh God - My help in ages past, My hope for years to come.

Be thou my guide while life shall last, and my eternal home.

Here is a prayer I wrote on my 60th birthday.

Don’t let me lose the wonder of daily blessings. Breath and bread, A husband’s love, the laughter of a large family, cultivated gardens and scenic vistas, changing seasons and unpredictable weather, well crafted writings and beautiful places, mercies new every morning.

For decades I have meditated on your word, your works, your ways.  May I always find this to be a wellspring of life and delight. 

May I enjoy the satisfaction of hungering and thirsting after righteousness, while never being content until I awake with your likeness stamped on my heart. 

Continue to surprise me with the mystery of Christ’s church.  May I view others through your eyes. Give me wisdom to share my life’s lessons when appropriate. Help me welcome different perspectives from my own.  Don’t let me be surprised or defensive when my imperfections are pointed out or when I uncover them in another. 

Aware of the widening disconnect between this world and the Kingdom of God, help me not to focus on my estrangement but on living well where I have been planted for the welfare of others. May my life and words make gospel truth beautiful to others.

May my extended experience of your sovereign love and wisdom further free me from worry.

May my maturing recognition of my limitations lessen my demand for control over my circumstances.

May your enduring assurances of love decrease my fear of people’s judgment and the craving for their approval.

May the recurring reality of the power of the resurrection displayed in my weakness, strengthen me as I am faced with new challenges.

Now to Him, who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,

according to the power at work within us, to Him be glory forever.  

Amen.