Jesus, You promised, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.”¹ Please help me to stay young in heart and spirit, even as I grow older in body.

Help me to remember to thank You for the times I’m in good health, and give me the grace to cheerfully accept the difficulties and disappointments that come with aging. Amen.

Each age has its special beauty.

Proverbs 16:31: The silver-haired head is a crown of glory, if it is found in the way of righteousness.

Proverbs 20:29: The glory of young men is their strength, and the splendor of old men is their gray head.

Growing old is no more than a bad habit which a busy person has no time to form.

—André Maurois

If wrinkles must be written upon your brow, let them not be written upon your heart. The spirit should not grow old.

—James Garfield

The sky this evening was beautiful—a cathedral in the heavens, glowing with light. It was almost like catching a glimpse of heaven. The sun is gone now, swallowed up by the darkness, but it’s sure to rise again. Sometimes the dawn is even more beautiful than the sunset.

The light slowly fades to darkness, but then comes the sunrise. “The Sun of Righteousness”—Jesus—“shall arise”¹ and set everything straight. Before I can see the sun itself when it begins to rise, I can see its effects as it lights up everything—like the light of God’s Word drives away the darkness.

I’m not looking for the sunset,

As the swift years come and go;
I am looking for the sunrise,
And the golden morning glow,
Where the light of heaven’s glory
Will break forth upon my sight,
In the land that knows no sunset,
Nor the darkness of the night.

Eighty-two-year-old Eloise sits in her nursing home room with Stage Six Alzheimer’s. She remembers her name but frequently doesn’t recognize her granddaughter. She is sweet and kind to all the nurses and has a special impact on them, although they appear in her room every morning as strangers. It is easy for them to be patient with Eloise; other Alzheimer’s patients sometimes act stubborn and cantankerous. In spite of losing her memory and spending most of her time alone, she is happy because she looks out her window and sees a tree.

Do you have parents, grandparents, or other loved ones who are suffering from any of the long-term troubles that occur naturally in old age? Here are five ways that you can return their love and support:

Someone asked me the other day, “Why do you so often tell your age?” Well, I think it’s wonderful how God has kept me through so many years. I’ll tell it again.—I’m in my 80th year [in 1966]!

I wouldn’t fear old age, if I were you. Some people think that old age brings on all sorts of troubles and inconveniences. There is some of that, of course, but old age can also be a glorious adventure, especially for those who have a personal relationship with Jesus. Without Jesus, I imagine my life would have been humdrum and filled with disappointments and failures, and I’ve talked to many people who are like that—people who are haunted by a sense of emptiness and futility because they don’t have faith or a living relationship with a living Jesus.

Brenda was nearly 80 when her husband died and she was left alone in a large house in a mid-sized city with a fairly high crime rate. Her two sons lived an hour away, but her daughter, who didn’t, wondered how her mother would cope and prayed for her often.

Months passed. One day Brenda was reading obituaries in the newspaper and came across a name she recognized from many years before—Nick, with whom she had become close friends when they were both teenage counselors at a summer camp for children. The obituary was for Nick’s wife. Memories flooded Brenda’s mind. She wrote Nick a condolence card, and he responded with a thank-you that also expressed his delight at hearing from her again. They continued to write each other, then spoke on the phone, and eventually he visited.

Odd, isn’t it, how our perceptions change as we age. When I was very small, my brother, who was all of 18 months older, defined “big.” When I was in 1^st grade, I thought 4^th graders were a higher life form, but by the 6^th grade I was old enough and wise enough to realize that the new batch of 4^th graders were in fact little kids.

My parents surely knew everything there was to know until I was a teenager, when they became clueless practically overnight. I could never imagine them as children, but now it’s hard to believe that my own children are parents. My grandparents always seemed old, but now I’m a grandparent myself, and I don’t feel old at all. Why should I? My mother-in-law doesn’t look or act old to me, and she has great-grandchildren. Age, I’m finding out, is more an attitude than a matter of years.