It struck me several years ago when I went to a nursing home to do a small performance that all of these people were young, energetic, and most probably had many friends at one point.
They had bright futures at one point. They had a first job, a first date, first time driving a car. There was a well-defined start to so many things, but where was the well-defined end? When they did these things for the first time, there was some amount of celebration. A shared sense of joy. Perhaps with parents, or maybe with a significant other or friends.
Part of what made these things exciting was the fact that others were aware of it and were happy for you. You started doing things that you weren’t doing before.
As I looked around the nursing home, I wondered if these people who looked so worn down with life remember the last time they did these things. When was their last time driving a car? When was the last walk around their neighborhood?
Around the same time I visited this nursing home, a song (7 Years by Lukas Graham) came out. The highlights of each age-range. I remember a lyric from it that always stuck with me:
I hope my children come and visit once or twice a month
Soon I’ll be sixty years old, will I think the world is cold
Or will I have a lot of children who can warm me?
60 might be a bit young to experience this to this degree, but as you get older, everything starts to become more difficult. Everything from buttoning your shirt to traveling across the country to see friends and family. It’s easy to start getting bitter at the world. A world that you once experienced so much joy in seemed to turn on you. Gravity itself feels heavier than it once did. Each time you get up it seems like it’s more difficult than the last.
Your friends, the few that you’ve kept in touch with, are starting to die off. You can’t go out and do the things you once were able to simply because your body and mind don’t work the way that they once did.
Maybe most saddening of all, your impact on the generation that is in its prime seems to weaken every day. You struggle to relate and have a conversation with people who are still active in the workforce or going through school.
Or maybe it’s not that you feel separated from it, but it seems they care less about you and your opinion than they used to. Now in this season where you have more wisdom and counsel to offer, it’s hardly sought out.
I have high respect for those that, as they age, continue to be active and involved in the things around them. I was reading an article earlier today about the statistics of older people who spend time alone. Elderly women especially seem to spend many, many hours alone as they get older. Some by choice, but some maybe just because they don’t have many things to do.
How sad it is to think about how vibrant your life may be now but how you will be forgotten or perhaps put to the side at some point. What more of a reason could you ask for to use the time you have to proclaim the good news of the gospel to those in your path and to stay active as long as you can.
I thin of Paul here: “To live is Christ, to die is gain.”
I’m sure when you get to older ages like this, the thought of being in Heaven with God sounds overwhelmingly good, but to live is Christ. To live is to do his will and proclaim the good news as long as you may.
There will be a time that you are forgotten. You may change the entire world, but one day you will most likely be forgotten by most if not all people. What can you leave that is much more than you or a “legacy”? Leave the truth of the gospel in hands that will continue spreading the good news.
and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men,[a] who will be able to teach others also. – 2 Timothy 2:2