Often a child’s perspective of dad is, no one is stronger than my Dad except maybe my Grandpa. It is through experience, hard work, and years of life that adds to grandpas to make them above (or stronger) than a dad.
I remember seeing my dad work hard and do things and, in comparison to my feeble strength and “hot dog” legs and arms I had as a little boy, my dad was Superman. But the more I saw what my Grandpa could do, a view similar to the above became also my view. I remember looking at his “farmer tan” arms and hands that were solid indicating that many years of hard work and strength were found in them. It was as if anyone who had a tool or needed a special know how, it was my grandpa who could do it all or solve it all.
But the last couple of times that I saw him alive in Missouri (he passed away this past January), I noticed something that really disturbed me and made my heart grievous. Where once he was a man whose arms were muscular and tanned, now they were more pale and much thinner. Hands full of muscle and a grip perhaps unmatched, now gave way to hands that are frail, boney, and shook some. This is why he spent much of his latter years with one hand clasped under the other to help control or hide the shakes.
It is very sad how life or aging specifically is so cruel. Life should be one of promotion and advancement as we advance in age. Instead as we age, our strength is robbed, our appearance diminishes, and valuable and valued knowledge is passed over or made way for a younger group of knowledgeable individuals. The aged are often viewed as relics, something to admire but from a distance and easily dismissed for someone/something better (I’ve seen this in nursing homes more times that I wish to see). André Maurois said, “Old age diminishes our strength; it takes away our pleasures one after the other; it withers the soul as well as the body; it renders adventure and friendship difficult; and finally it is shadowed by thoughts of death.” I know and “get it” that things change, life moves on, old is taken away to make room for new and improved (trust me, I replace a lot of aged network equipment that were bulky and energy hogs to sleeker, smarter, better, and more efficient systems).
But about a year before my Grandpa’s passing, I seriously desired to load him into my truck and take him to the various places he used to roam while younger and able to do so. I understand that he wouldn’t ever be able to get out as just getting into my truck would had been effort, but at least one more chance to see what/where he used to see and do. But something became horribly and quickly wrong with that fun idea. Despite seeing some things falling apart, he had memories of buildings, houses, farms that were strong, vibrant, money-making, livestock roaming, sales made at the stock barn, etc. To see things go from nice to trash or gone, it may have destroyed his fond memories. His old church, when we (my wife and I) saw it in June was nothing but a small pile of broken boards and trash. The church building that stood for over a century was gone forever. The apartments right behind it, burned and virtually gone. His farm of 50 years before going into the nursing home, while some things remained, much changed. Houses all over that area that once were, they are now either empty spots or completely different with a new house or mobile home. “Stomping grounds” during his younger years changed radically to the point that all there is left are stories in history books of a forgotten and certainly never again time. Family, little by little, gone. Even two of his four sons and his wife of 67 years all buried recently prior to his passing. Friends and comrades in arms, and I know he very much missed the annual letters and cards from his fellow soldiers that he served with in Korea, that were once frequent diminished to just cards and letters from his children and maybe grandchildren.
Is there anything that can be done? Have the aged, and if the rapture doesn’t take us before we, too, will be the aged one day, with only a moment of time during youth to make a mark of some kind. Perhaps we leave an impression or special singular memory when old, to then have nothing left when families have all moved away and life and age continue to take and take what we have left of our lives? Although I know this verse is part of a context unrelated to this but if I could be granted a measure of room to use a verse out of context for a moment to make a point, the Lord did lay this verse on me from Isaiah 35:3, “Strengthen the feeble hands, steady the knees that give way”. For the Christian, when we part from this “mortal coil” (as from Hamlet’s soliloquy), do we have a hope that endures? Is there something more than a box in a hole in the ground six-feet deep?
Resoundingly the answer is yes. Time, life, and age may progress and we may not stop it, despite advances with medicine. But we can fill it with work. A job? No, something far better. Jesus speaking in John 9:4-5, “I must work the works of Him who sent Me while it is day; the night is coming when no one can work. As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” So let us substitute our name in this verse in place of Jesus doing the work and take in the verses in Matthew 5:14, 15 (emphasis added), “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden…Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven” and John 3:14, “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up” into this verse to give it a more rounded context. So let us make John 9:4-5 personal with minor changes to make it applicable (with my name as the example, substitute your name), “Robert must fulfill My plans, Calling, and will because I (God) Called him while there is life in his body and time left on the earth. There is a coming a day that I will call Robert to glory (rapture or through death) and it will be over for him physically. But while alive, Robert can point people to Me. Even when he passes away, his legacy and posterity of his life’s work—a labor of love for Me—carries on to show people Me in what I can do in a life surrendered.” And then to tie in Isaiah’s verse to this to continue the vein of thought, “I will grant Robert the strength to fulfill My desires. And when and where he is weak or comes up short, like I said to My servant Paul the Apostle (in 2 Corinthians 12:9), ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness’.” So what is that work for you? That is something you will have to pray about.
Age doesn’t have to be the robber and death doesn’t have to be the victor. A life fully committed to Jesus’ plans and will (and actively fulfilling that plan and will) never has to know the sting of death or the pain in loss. As God through the prophet Hosea (Hosea 13:14), “I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death. O Death, I will be your plagues! O Grave, I will be your destruction! Pity is hidden from My eyes.”
Jesus, just as Your man Nehemiah cried out (in Nehemiah 6:9) may we utter/repeat his words, “…O God, strengthen my hands.”