On Aging Gracefully

A week before Grandma died, I ran across a series of photographs online.  All 40 photographs were taken of the same four women: the wife of photographer Nicholas Nixon and her three sisters.  They are crisp, black-and-white portraits, and in every frame the sisters stand in the same order.  When viewed in succession, the images are striking.  There’s no airbrushing here.  No attempts to mask the toll that time takes on each individual: the wrinkles that appear around the eyes and mouths and then gradually dig their way deeper; the graying hair; the slow transformation of the slender, youthful figures to the slack, stouter figures of older age.  Perhaps the series gave me a pause because it brought to mind the photo that my dad took of my five sisters and me as we stood in our parents’ kitchen this past Christmas.

It’s no secret that our culture idolizes youth.  As each year of my life passes, I’m more aware of society’s pressure to look young (and act) young.  I wonder how much time and money we spend each year attempting to defy the aging process.  There are mountains of creams and cosmetics, hair dyes, and methods to remove unwanted hairs and stimulate desired hairs to grow.  There is the pressure to maintain a youthful-looking figure, and to minimize the appearance of one’s wrinkles.  The use of those products isn't necessarily sinful, but what’s our motive in using them?  It shouldn’t surprise us if those who deny the gospel are eager to escape the aging process as a part of the curse that God pronounced on the human race.  But why aren’t we who believe more ready to embrace it as the necessary part of our earthly life that the Bible says it is?

At first glance, the title of this post may seem to be an oxymoron.  The essential meaning of the word “grace” is “beauty.”  What’s beautiful about growing old?  Not only does our outward appearance alter as we age, but a multitude of aches and pains accompany aging, too.

Well, Job 12:12 declares, “With the ancient is wisdom; and in length of days understanding.”  Part of that understanding in the life of the aging child of God is an increased awareness of one’s own sin.  That’s the understanding that made David plead, ““Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions” (Ps. 25:7).  The fruit of God’s sanctifying work in the life of His children increases as they age.  “Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:6).  “But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day” (Prov. 4:18). 

My grandma, Grace, was full of beauty in old age.  Yes, she dressed nicely and her hair was neat.  But more important was the way in which she adorned herself with good works. More memorable were her gentle smile and the kind words that testified to the meek and quiet spirit that adorned her heart.  According to 1 Peter 3, that’s also what God values.  Surely anything that God esteems worth a great price deserves more of our time and money than vain attempts to maintain the appearance of youth. 

             
I want to be remembered as a women who adorned herself with that meek and quiet spirit and with good works, too.  It’s true, too often I succumb to the pressure to idolize youth.  I fret when I can’t fit back into my old jeans.  When I see wiry white hairs sprout on the top of my head, I’m tempted to reach for my tweezers.  I need God’s Word to reprove me: “Flee youthful lusts!” (2 Tim. 2:22).  I need God’s word to correct me: “Favor is deceitful, and beauty is vain: but the woman that feareth the LORD, she shall be praised” (Prov. 31:30).  I need God’s word to instruct me:  “The hoary head is a crown of glory, if it be found in the way of righteousness” (Prov. 16:31).

That’s the crown I want.  I want that crown so that someday soon I can trade it in for a crown of glory that will never fade away (1 Pet. 5:4).