What's Age Got To Do With It?

Louise Morse

Description

If you think that being old is about having a rocking chair and an easy life style, think again. You're looking through the binoculars backwards. What's Age Got To Do With It? turns the lenses the right way around and gives a clear, Scriptural view of God's purpose for old age. When He created the universe, God set in motion times and seasons and the ageing process. Old age was part of His plan from the beginning - that people should ripen to maturity, developing wisdom through a lifetime of experience and relationship with Him, eventually enriching others with attributes that have been honed over lifetimes. But instead of contributing as God intended, many see themselves as "useless" and are afraid of being a burden. Ageism has destroyed their self-image and expectations, and they give up and become passive - and we are all the losers. Here are stories of many people living full, purpose-driven lives well into their 90s and even 100s. For example, you'll meet the lay preacher who wrote a book at 100 years of age because he couldn't stand long enough to preach, and the 95-year-old who organized more Christian support from local churches for his care home, as well as many ordinary people who are making a difference to the lives of those around them. What's Age Got To Do With It? shows how to take off the reins and live the way God intended from the beginning.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie

Informations

• Publié par: Lion Hudson
• Date de parution: 17 novembre 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780857217493
• Langue: English

Extrait

Books by the same author:
Could it Be Dementia?: Losing Your Mind Doesn t Mean Losing Your Soul (Monarch Books, 2008)
Dementia: Frank and Linda s Story: New Understanding, New Approaches, New Hope (Monarch Books, 2010)
Worshipping with Dementia: Meditations, Scriptures and Prayers for Sufferers and Carers (Monarch Books, 2010)
Dementia: Pathways to Hope: Spiritual Insights and Practical Hope for Carers (Monarch Books, 2015)

Text copyright 2017 Louise Morse
This edition copyright 2017 Lion Hudson
The right of Louise Morse to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
Published by Lion Books
an imprint of
Lion Hudson IP Ltd
Wilkinson House, Jordan Hill Road,
Oxford OX2 8DR, England
www.lionhudson.com/lion
ISBN 978 0 85721 748 6
e-ISBN 978 0 85721 749 3
First edition 2017
Acknowledgments
Every effort has been made to trace and contact copyright owners for material used in this book. We apologize for any inadvertent omissions or errors.
Cover Image GlobalStock/iStockphoto
Extract from Don t preach to us about ageism, change the law by Terry Prone in The Times copyright 2009, Terry Prone. Reprinted by permission of The Times .
Unless otherwise stated and where marked NLT , Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright _ 1996, 2004. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked NASB are taken from the New American Standard Bible Copyright 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation.
Scripture quotations marked NKJV are taken from the New King James Version .
Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked CJB are taken from the Complete Jewish Bible, Copyright 1998 by David H. Stern. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked ESV are taken from The ESV Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version ), copyright 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations marked Amplified Bible are taken from the Amplified Bible (AMP), Copyright 2015 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. www.Lockman.org.
Scripture quotations marked NIV are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version , NIV Copyright 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
Scripture quotations marked KJV are taken from the Authorized (King James) Version: rights in the Authorized Version in the United Kingdom are vested in the Crown. Reproduced by permission of the Crown s patentee, Cambridge University Press.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Contents
Acknowledgments
Preface
Chapter 1: Steady the Seniors - Our Day is Coming!
How the biggest demographic change in history has huge opportunities for older people
Chapter 2: The Real Life Design
Why God designed old age, on purpose
Chapter 3: Clearing the Runway
Recognizing and removing obstacles
Chapter 4: Fighting the Invisible Gorilla
How ageism makes older people invisible
Chapter 5: How the Tide is Turning
Ageism is so last-century - stories of seniors living with purpose
Chapter 6: How Not to be Knackered at 90
Dealing with things that will prevent you from achieving your destiny
Chapter 7: Your Pre-boarding Check
Making sure you are OK for take-off
Chapter 8: Elderhood - Seniors with Purpose
Living God s purpose, and understanding the key
Chapter 9: Polishing the Family Silver - Notes for Churches
Empowering and engaging older members for the benefit of all
Recommended reading
Notes
Acknowledgments
M Y FIRST THANK YOU GOES to readers of my previous books, who have been so generous with their feedback and encouragement. Many have emailed or written, and many have gone out of their way to find me and chat at national Christian events. An example is the mother who whizzed by with her small daughter in a pushchair, saying as she went, I can t stop - but wanted you to know that my mother read Dementia: Frank and Linda s Story and thought it was so good she bought 20 copies to give to people she thought it would help. The first copy went to our vicar.
Why did she think that? I asked.
Over a shoulder she said, I ll come back and tell you later! And she did. Then there was Allison, clutching a battered copy of Worshipping with Dementia with Post-it notes sticking out of the pages, asking, When are you going to do another one? Because the residents in the care homes I go into love it. And the couple I met at a conference in North Wales (where the weather was so cold I kept imagining press stories headed, Speaker Found Frozen to Death at Christian Conference ). The wife said she had cared for both her parents as they aged, and they had both developed dementia.
It was reading your books that kept me going, she told me, and when I knew this one was coming out I made my husband order it straight away.
She stayed up half the night reading it, he added. It wasn t just the practical information, because that s available all over the place now; they said it was the scriptural, spiritual insight.
T HANK YOU A MILLION TIMES to my colleagues at the Pilgrims Friend Society (PFS). Thank you for sending me the information and the stories that you do; thank you for your comments on my pieces, and thank you for allowing me into your worlds. Thank you to Roger Hitchings, retired pastor, speaker and writer, and inspiration. And a very special THANK YOU for Janet Jacob, former psychogeriatric nurse and home manager, my friend and colleague who speaks with me at conference and is always calm and collected and - most of all - steadfast. Bless you, Janet! A huge THANK YOU , too, to my charity s chief executive, Stephen Hammersley. Sometimes it worries me that I find myself agreeing with everything Stephen suggests, because it hasn t always been that way with me and CEOs. But Stephen brings a huge array of God-given talents, especially the gift of enabling and encouraging.
Finally, authors dedications probably don t usually mention the Holy Spirit, but I d like to put on record my unending gratitude to Him who is still taking the weak and foolish (1 Corinthians 1:27) to reveal His wisdom to the world.
Preface
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His Hand
Who saith A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!
(From Rabbi Ben Ezra, by Robert Browning)
There is a story of a man who nearly drowned in a sinking ship because his cabin door was locked. After frantically pushing and rattling the door handle, he suddenly realized that it wasn t locked at all, and he managed to escape. He had simply been pushing the door away from him instead of pulling it towards him. Is this what we ve been doing when it comes to unlocking the vision of all that God intends for us in our latter years? Have we been so panicked by thoughts of ageing that we have been pushing away from us the the best for which the first was made ?
When He created the universe, God set in motion times and seasons and the ageing process. Old age was part of His plan from the beginning - that people should ripen to maturity, developing wisdom through a lifetime of experience and relationship with Him, eventually taking their place as elders in society. Robert Browning saw it, and so do others, including many world-leading experts on old age. Dr William H. Thomas, a gerontologist and professor at the University of Maryland, wrote an award-winning book that has been hailed as a seminal work and a call to arms . 1 It s called What Are Old People For? How Elders Will Save the World . He believes that now is the time to restore elderhood .
An even more authoritative book, the Bible, describes God s plan for older people with crystal clarity. A ripe old age is regarded in the Bible as one of the greatest blessings to be bestowed upon mankind, not just for the individual but for the whole of society. They are the glue that holds society together, said a survey published by the RVS (formerly the WRVS) that detailed the economic and human contribution of older people.
Most people reading this book will be Bible readers, and many will actively study it. So how is it that we haven t seen the richness of God s plan for us in old age? William Thomas says that it is because we have been blinded by a malign adulation of adulthood and the belief that it is the peak of human development. It was a mindset generated by the Baby Boomers, the largest generation in history, which, because of its sheer weight of numbers, became a crucible for change. As a result, we have unconsciously absorbed a declinist view of old age that not only fails to see its purpose but has taken against it, tarnishing it with soul-destroying ageism. Ageism has so permeated our thinking and decimated our expectations that, instead of making the most of old age and the elderhood God designed for us, we lock ourselves into a notion of perpetual adulthood. The anti-ageing industry is raking in billions. Looking on the outward appearance (1 Samuel 16:7), we fail to see the inner qualities of older people, those who have been ripened and refined, as God intended.
But the tide is turning. Among the ripples are warnings from business gurus that employers need to drop ageist attitudes and recognize the value of their older employees, changing their practices in order to