A Blessing for Aging ... Trusting and Flourishing

/
A Blessing for Aging ... Trusting and Flourishing

Aging is hard. When we are young, aged people are often “invisible.” Life is so busy for parents of growing families, adults who are building careers, even middle aged people who are young enough to travel and serve. They all have “big, busy lives.”

As we get older, our lives can get smaller. Our capacity shrinks and much of our time, attention, and energies are absorbed by health issues. Life gets hard and can feel hopeless.

Read More

Turning 78: Growing Old with the Ancient of Days

/
Turning 78: Growing Old with the Ancient of Days

For some reason, I’m feeling my age this year.

Up to this point, I hadn’t felt old… I have just felt “me” — a little slower, a little more forgetful, a little more “invisible” to those around me. But just an older “me.”

Maybe it’s been my multiple bouts of pneumonia OR maybe it’s my believing the enemy’s lie “you’re too old to ______” ( I’ll share my thoughts on that in a coming post).

Read More

A Blessing for Aging ... Trusting and Flourishing

/
A Blessing for Aging ... Trusting and Flourishing

Aging is hard. When we are young, aged people are often “invisible.” Life is so busy for parents of growing families, adults who are building careers, even middle aged people who are young enough to travel and serve. They all have “big, busy lives.”

As we get older, our lives can get smaller. Our capacity shrinks and much of our time, attention, and energies are absorbed by health issues. Life gets hard and can feel hopeless.

Read More

Respecting the Holy Spirit in Older Believers

/
Respecting the Holy Spirit in Older Believers

Recently, I was thinking about my mother and my mother-in-law and other older loved ones in my past…wishing I had been more understanding and sympathetic with their struggle with aging and weakness and decline. Now I find it’s my turn. And now I know what it feels like to age and say “good-bye” to capacities and people and opportunities and youthful strength.

So today I’m revisiting this post…for my own encouragement and for yours too, dear reader. We are all aging. May the Lord meet you in whatever stage of the process you are in.

And let’s support one another.

Read More

"Receiving" and "Being Received"

/
"Receiving" and "Being Received"

Today I had a lengthy conversation with my lovely friend, Pat. Pat and her husband Rod were our first friends as newlyweds. So we go back 50 years.

After catching up with each other, we commiserated about how difficult it has been as older women to become “invisible” to others…not just younger people, but also our doctors (especially male docs), and many others we interact with. In fact, we have even caught on that people aren’t always laughing with us but at us.

Read More

Walking Wobbly in this World . . . Again

/
Walking Wobbly in this World . . . Again

I had a major vertigo episode late last night, as I was finishing a tutoring session online. I pushed through the last few minutes. But for the rest of the evening and through this morning, I have been nauseated and wobbly and less than stable.

By God’s grace, I fell asleep last night and have been resting ever since. So now I’m revisiting where the Lord took me a little more than exactly two years ago. Why not join me as we hear what HE says about walking wobbly in this “out of kilter world.”

. . . I’m walking wobbly these days. Intermittent vertigo and bouts of mild dizziness have been mine as I go about my daily life — difficult because I never know when it will hit (two times while driving were terrifying).

So changes have been made, especially since the testing determined that a couple of small strokes (past) in the balance area of my brain are likely the cause of my symptoms. Scary but good to know and now to process.

Read More

Urgent Prayer Needed for a Dear Sister

/
Urgent Prayer Needed for a Dear Sister

Dear Praying Readers,

There is an urgent need for prayer on behalf of a dear sister in the Lord.

Peggy is almost 90 years young and has experienced the sudden and deep loss of her husband. And this has come in the midst of a long period of personal physical pain. The surgery that was to be her only option to fix the fracture in her hip was scheduled for mid-September. But it has now been cancelled indefinitely because of COVID.

Dearest friends, would you beseech our God on behalf of this dear one whom Jesus loves. Rescue, deliverance, healing in Jesus name.

Read More

Respecting the Holy Spirit in Other Believers, including (or maybe especially) Older Believers

/
Respecting the Holy Spirit in Other Believers, including (or maybe especially) Older Believers

This past Sunday during worship, I was arrested by the final stanza and chorus in one of our worship songs:

My final breath shall be forever Jesus
When shadows lengthen before my eyes…
And I thought of the beautiful group of online sisters I lead on Tuesday evenings — most of us in our 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and even very close to 90! We are in various areas of the country, though mostly in Ohio. And we share so many things, mainly our love for Jesus and each other because we are sisters IN HIM!

Read More

Christ In You . . . JOY in the Journey

/
Christ In You . . . JOY in the Journey

!’ve been feeling a bit low lately, and I don’t know why. You too? No matter, our Abba Father God loves us anyway, no matter how we feel . . . no matter how depressed, no matter how dark, no matter how ugly.

And so I prayed this morning,

Good morning, LORD

I’m feeling a bit low this morning, and I don’t know why, Lord. But I will trust You to be the Joy and the Strength of my fluctuating soul.

Read More

An Encouraging Friend . . . Fruitfulness in the Journey

/
An Encouraging Friend . . . Fruitfulness in the Journey

I had to giggle. . . it sounded like Peggy was basically telling me to “Suck it up, Jan,” despite my vertigo and dizziness.

And the Holy Spirit whispered His encouragement and His own “Suck it up” to me:

If Peggy can keep on painting at 88 years of age, despite her health issues, you can keep on writing!”

Yes, my darling friend Peggy is 88 years old and still painting. So let me share a few of her gems with you:

Read More

Waking Words for We Wobbly Ones

/
Waking Words for We Wobbly Ones

Dear Wobbly Friends,

Today the words that flooded my waking mind were a song. We have been singing this song at our women’s Bible study and at our Sunday worship. And lately I have been singing the chorus in the early morning darkness of my walks in our condo-complex neighborhood.

What I know is that HE truly holds us fast, dear wobbly-worthy ones . . . no matter what our “wobble” as we walk with HIM in this broken, wobbly world.

Read More

Walking Wobbly in this World

/
Walking Wobbly in this World

I’m walking wobbly these days. Intermittent vertigo and bouts of mild dizziness have been mine as I go about my daily life — difficult because I never know when it will hit (two times while driving were terrifying).

So changes have been made, especially since the testing determined that a couple of small strokes (past) in the balance area of my brain are likely the cause of my symptoms. Scary but good to know and now to process.

Read More

Growing Old with the Ancient of Days

/
Growing Old with the Ancient of Days

"This is getting old" was my early morning greeting to my husband the other day. John agreed. Waiting on surgeries and recoveries and at the same time being sick and relapsing were wearing on us.

I'm not bored, not even discontent [OK, just a little] but what can I say? It all was getting OLD! Why? Well for me it just isn't fun not to be able to do my usual stuff or go where I want to go (like to New Jersey to visit my sister on the beach before she moves to Florida!) or accomplish my long list of projects. Did you notice the "operative words" here -- do, go, accomplish? 


Read More

Processing and Praying about Aging

/
Processing and Praying about Aging

I recently visited an older friend who is in a rehab center. The purpose for his being there is a good one: recovery from repeated infections in order to prepare for other medical procedures. But my friend is fighting it every inch of the way ... Oh how sad. What a waste of the precious few moments left in his valuable life. 

But as I have been observing those older than me and listening to the stories of their care-giving loved ones,  I have to pause. Oh how I want to age graciously. I want to leave this earth speaking truth and living love.

Read More

Grieving the Loss of the Living this Christmas

/
Grieving the Loss of the Living this Christmas

Scrolling through Advent/Christmas posts of the past, I came across this one that I wrote in December 2013.

A lot has happened in the four years that have passed since that writing. My sweet little "Mommy" has been at home with Jesus for two years already. My mother-in-law Betty Jean has also been with Jesus for a year. My husband John and I are four years older (I hit the big 7-0!) ... and feeling it on and off.

But I have younger friends who are now taking their turn saying their "slow good-by" to loved ones. So as a help and as a sharing of their tears as they "walk through the valley of the shadow," I'm posting this again.

This is for you, sweet ones. The path is filled with griefs as well as joys, but also with the realization of how few the moments of life left to share. But our God walks through it all with you. He's the God of all comfort!

Read More

Facing my Mortality ... Reflections on Turning 70

/
Facing my Mortality ... Reflections on Turning 70

Facing my mortality is good for my soul.

And my "decade-turning birthday" does give me pause, unlike any other. I don't care that they say that 70 is the new 60. Who are the "they" anyway? It's wishful thinking ... just like all the other decade-turning birthdays were. For some reason in our culture, we think we should be above aging!

Yes, there are amazing advances in medical and health sciences that keep pushing the survival rate higher and higher. But what about the "soul's survival rate"? What about the quality of the inner life that transcends the outer?

Read More