#aging

Memorable Loss

Is it possible for beauty to exist alongside realities as distressing as dementia and as dreadful as death? Is it possible to write about such realities in a way that is both devastating and encouraging, that is both shatteringly sorrowful and heartbreakingly beautiful? Karen Martin’s Memorable Loss: A Story of Friendship in the Face of Dementia answers with a resounding yes. Karen Martin’s friendship with Kathleen was perhaps a bit unconventional, not least because they were separated in age by …

Gun Lap

Would it be strange to say that my favorite part of Robert Wolgemuth’s Gun Lap is the dedication? I think you’ll understand if you allow me to explain. Several months ago Robert sent me a note to say he was writing a book about a man’s “gun lap,” the final lap of a man’s race through life. It is a book meant to guide those already running their final lap and to equip those who are approaching it. Having just …

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Threescore and Ten

As time passes, I find myself increasingly drawn to old authors and old books. I scour the used bookshops to look for lost treasures. At the back of one such nineteenth-century work I found this old poem by Edward Morris. I don’t know who Edward Morris was or when he lived, but I’m grateful for the sweet poem he left us, a poem which celebrates the days so many lament—the days when life has grown long and death draws near. …

Grandchildren Are the Crown of the Aged

“Grandchildren are the crown of the aged.” This is one of those proverbs I’ve been meaning to explore for a long time. But finally, over the summer, I had time and opportunity to spend a couple of weeks pondering it and trying to figure it out. And as I did so, I found a few ways to be both challenged and encouraged by it. “The aged” obviously refers to elderly people. But because these words are found in the book …

Gray Hair and a Righteous Life

It has always been one of my favorite proverbs: “Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.” It’s one that clashes hard with Western culture and its glorification of youth. But it’s one that is fully consistent with a biblical worldview and its emphasis on wisdom. The book of Proverbs is meant to demonstrate two very different ways to live. It contrasts the way of wisdom with the way of folly. In this generalized …

When My Children Grow Strong and I Grow Weak

Multiculturalism has a fascinating way of messing with our presuppositions. We find to our surprise that what is normal to one person is foreign to another, that what is good within one culture is evil within another. We find that much of what we believe to be objectively good and true has actually been filtered through a subjective cultural lens. We find that we need to look to the transcultural Bible to ask, “What does God say about this?” When …

Aging Brings Life-Shaping Decisions

I remember watching the commercial as a child. A man dressed for work sprints after a moving bus, trying desperately to flag it down before it drives off without him. In a flash, he is transported to a beach where he meets his future self, jogging under the morning sun. His future self looks over and asks, “Still in the rat race?” “Hey, you’re me!,” he replies. His future self is retired, healthy, free. “Retirement agrees with me.” “Retirement? How …

Greater Age Brings Greater Responsibility

Aging is a universal reality in this world, for as time progresses, we progress with it. Aging brings many sorrows as we face greater exposure to the sin that lives within us and the sin that pollutes everything around us. Aging also brings many joys as we experience God’s rich blessings, and especially as we receive greater exposure to his renewing work. If sorrows are inevitable, is there a way of living that can diminish their impact? Is there something …

With Greater Age Comes Greater Joy

We were made to exist within time, to age as we progress through the years allotted to us. As we age, we experience tremendous sorrows—the sorrows of weakness, weariness, reaping, mortality, and fear. But we do not experience only sorrows. We experience joys as well. Some of these extend to believer and unbeliever alike, but God reserves the choicest of his joys for those who live for his glory. (Have you read parts one and two of this series about …

With Greater Age Comes Greater Sorrow

Our only experience of aging is within this sinful world. We don’t know what aging would have looked like if this world had remained unsullied by sin. We do know, however, that aging would have still occurred. Before God created people, God created time. So God created people to exist within time and pass through it. Thus, babies would have grown to be children and children would have matured into adulthood. Perhaps the benefits that come with aging would have …