Video Ill.: “Everybody Loves Raymond: Golf for It”, Season 8, Episode 23, 11:00 - 14:11
31 Gray hair is a crown of glory;
it is gained by living a Godly life.
(Proverbs 16, NLT)
29 The glory of the young is their strength;? the gray hair of experience is the
splendor of the old.
(Proverbs 20, NLT)
27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world. (James 1, NKJV)
At the end of that episode of Everybody Loves Raymond, Ray and Robert end up fighting over who gets to have their mother Marie live with them.
Sadly, though, many people are a lot more like the part of the episode that I just shared with you.
The truth is that more and more people are living longer.
The Elderly Population In Every State Will Grow ...
By Sermon Central
http://garydfoster.com
Copied from Sermon Central
USA Today - 4/21/2005
USA Today reports that The elderly population in every state is growing faster than the total population. Senior citizens will outnumber school-age children in 10 states in the next 25 years, according to the Census Bureau. It also predicts 26 states will double their populations of people older than 65 by 2030, when the oldest members of the baby boom generation hit their 80s.
Florida, Pennsylvania, Vermont, Wyoming, North Dakota, Delaware, New Mexico, Montana, Maine, and West Virginia will have fewer children than elderly. Only in Washington DC will the population grow younger.
Nationwide, the growth in the 65-and-older population will be about 3.5 times the growth of the nation as a whole.
As the population ages, we are more likely to have aging family members in our own families that need our care.
In the early church, the aging generation became a problem. People and families were neglecting, I would even say abandoning, their parents and grandparents. It was such a problem that Paul had to give Timothy these instructions:
1 Never speak harshly to an older man, but appeal to him respectfully as you would to your own father. Talk to younger men as you would to your own brothers. 2 Treat older women as you would your mother, and treat younger women with all purity as you would your own sisters.
|| 3 Take care of any widow who has no one else to care for her. 4 But if she has children or grandchildren, their first responsibility is to show godliness at home and repay their parents by taking care of them. This is something that pleases God.
|| 5 Now a true widow, a woman who is truly alone in this world, has placed her hope in God. She prays night and day, asking God for his help. 6 But the widow who lives only for pleasure is spiritually dead even while she lives. 7 Give these instructions to the church so that no one will be open to criticism.
|| 8 But those who won’t care for their relatives, especially those in their own household, have denied the true faith. Such people are worse than unbelievers. (1 Timothy 5, NLT)
Shame on those who do not care for the widows and I would even say widowers in their own families.
Shame on those who do not take care of the elders in their own families.
Woman Lives Without Power for 15 Years
Source:
KUTV, "Woman Turns Lights on After 15 Years in the Dark," KUTV.com (2-17-07)
Copied from Preaching Today
https://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2008/april/1031907.html
I read the story about an elderly woman named Norena, who lived in South Florida. When a hurricane hit South Florida, Norena's home was one of many that was severely damaged. She received an insurance settlement, and the repair work began. However, when the money ran out, so did the contractor, leaving an unfinished home with no electricity. Norena has been living without power ever since.
The astounding part of this story is that the hurricane was not Katrina, but Andrew. Hurricane Andrew struck in 1992. Norena has been living in that dark, unfinished house for 15 years. No heat when the winter chill settled over South Florida. No air conditioning when the mercury climbed into the 90's and the humidity clung to 100 percent. Not one hot shower.
Without money to finish the repairs, Norena just got by with a small lamp and a single burner. Her neighbors didn't seem to notice the absence of power. Acting on a tip, the mayor of Miami-Dade got involved. It only took a few hours of work by electrical contractor Kent Crook to return power to the house.
CBS News reported that Norena planned to let the water get really hot, and then take her first bubble bath in a decade and a half. "It's hard to describe having [the electricity]…to switch on," she said. "It's overwhelming."
Where was her family?
How is it possible that no one noticed that she did not have a finished home — did not have electricity?
Shame on them for letting her live like that for so long.
Jesus provides for us the perfect example of caring for our parents and elders, even as He was suffering and dying on the cross. In John 19 we read:
25 Standing near the cross were Jesus’ mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary (the wife of Clopas), and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother standing there beside the disciple he loved, he said to her, “Dear woman, here is your son.” 27 And he said to this disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from then on this disciple took her into his home. (John 19, NLT)
As the oldest son in the family, Jesus, even while dying, made sure that His mother would be cared and provided for.
If Jesus, out of love and respect, ensured the care for His mother, we today ought to love the older members of our family.
How do we do that?
This morning I want to share a few practical ways to show that love and respect.
First, be available.
Paul writes to the Galatian church, saying:
10 …[W]henever we have the opportunity, we should do good to everyone—especially to those in the family of faith. (Galatians 6, NLT)
Whenever we have the opportunity — words that mean this: moments will present themselves to us where we will have the opportunity to do good things.
This is true in our church, in our neighborhoods, in our communities, but most importantly, this morning, in our families.
Keep an eye out for opportunities to help — to do good — to offering a hand. Be available and ready for action.
Seize those moments to mow the lawn, shovel the snow, take out the trash, make a meal, bring over flowers, coffee or lemonade. Make time to sit with them.
Be available.
Be available to listen. Our aging family members may share the same stories about when they were younger, but let them. Allow them to walk down memory lane one more time. Listen to the stories as if it were the first time hearing them.
Be available to talk, to share, to offer companionship.
Be available to serve because an opportunity to do good will present itself. Act upon those opportunities.
https://www.focusonthefamily.com/pro-life/caring-for-elderly-parents-complete-guide/
Angie Haley
March 27, 2020
Angie Haley, writing for Focus on the Family, says, “In a like manner, churches can offer a myriad of opportunities to serve the elderly in their congregation and community. When I was a little girl,” she writes, “our church had Senior Adult events. In fact, my mom was the leader of those events. They had weekly meals together every Wednesday night, Sunday evening Bible study, and monthly socials. Interestingly, many of the moms who were in that group remain the best of friends today because the time afforded them through church activities allowed them to build a strong community of life-long friendship.”
Quoting Teresa of Avila, also known as Saint Teresa of Jesus, Angie writes, “Christ has no body now but yours. No hands, no feet on earth but yours. Yours are the eyes through with which He looks compassion on this world. Yours are the feet with which He walks to do good. Yours are the hands through which He blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are the body. Christ has no body now on earth but yours.”
It is up to us to love our elders in our families the same way Jesus has loved us.
We also need to be available for fellowship.
We need to make sure that our aging family members’ social and spiritual relationships are encouraged and are in tact.
Often times, as these family members age, getting out to church just isn’t something they can do.
We need to find ways to bring the church to them.
Sing with them. Pray with them. Commune with them. Read daily devotional books with them. Play sermons on TV or the computer for them.
Be available to them to support their social and spiritual needs as well.
Neighbor Dead Four Years Before Anyone Noticed
Source: Sally Jacobs, "Years After Neighbors Last Saw Her, Worcester Woman Found Dead," Boston Globe (10-27-93)
Source: Boston Globe (10-27-93); appeared in: Randy Frazee, The Connecting Church (Zondervan, 2001)
Copied from Preaching Today
https://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2003/february/14200.html
We cannot be like these neighbors I read about. The Boston Globe reported this story:
It can never be said that Adele Gaboury's neighbors were less than responsible. When her front lawn grew hip-high, they had a local boy mow it down. When her pipes froze and burst, they had the water turned off. When the mail spilled out the front door, they called the police. The only thing they didn't do was check to see if she was alive. She wasn't.
Police finally climbed her crumbling brick stoop, broke in the side door of her little blue house, and found what they believe to be the 73-year-old woman's skeletal remains, where they had lain, perhaps for as long as four years. "It's not really a friendly neighborhood," said Eileen Dugan, 70, once a close friend of Gaboury's, whose house sits 20 feet from the dead woman's house. "I'm as much to blame as anyone. She was alone and needed someone to talk to, but I was working two jobs and was sick of her coming over at all hours. Eventually I stopped answering the door."
Eileen Dugan didn’t want to be available anymore.
She quit answering the door.
I hope today that is not us. I hope that we choose to be available to our aging family members, in order to let them know they are loved.
2. We also need to be patient.
Sometimes it is hard to be patient with aging family members.
https://newhope.cc/caring-aging-parents-biblical-perspective/
Craig Trierweiler writes:
“Caretakers … experience painful challenges to their own human heart. One man talked about the extraordinary patience required to care for his elderly mom. When an aging parent asks the same question multiple times a day, is confused by the simplest of tasks, or can no longer recognize faces of family members, patience can run very thin in the home. Some caretakers respond with anger. Others with frustration. Afterward, a wave of guilt will crash over the caretaker as they feel convicted about treating mom or dad with such insensitivity.
“Occasionally, adult children result to ‘helicoptering’ and watch their parents’ every move, making them feel like prisoners in their own home. In a fascinating article called, ‘Aging Parents Resist Helicopter Children’, Clair Ansberry gave practical advice for adult children who wrestle with making decisions for their parents. Ansberry suggests that adult children need to pick their battles carefully when helping parents and ask ‘whether they are intervening for their parents’ well-being or to alleviate their own worries.’ In other words, just because an aging parent may be stubborn about wearing hearing aids or taking much longer to do simple chores, does not mean they are incompetent. If personal safety is at stake, of course, adult children need to exercise care and wisdom. But not every aging parent is in need of constant supervision. Quoting a Harvard psychologist, Ansberry writes, ‘If a parent fumbles with the key when trying to unlock a door, kids should be patient and wait, rather than grabbing the key and taking over. While you may be trying to be helpful, the message, deliberate or not, is that you are competent and the parent is not.’
“Patience, my friend,” Craig writes. “This is one of the keys to caring for the elderly.”
Be patient.
Paul in the great love chapter starts off with reminding us first and foremost that love is patient.
Give our older family members time. Do not rush them. Allow them to do as they can.
Part of being patient is not taking shortcuts. There is no shortcut for love.
Elderly Woman Refuses to Take Shortcuts
Source: Adapted from Heidi Neumark, Breathing Space (Beacon Press, 2003), p. 16-17
Copied from Preaching Today
https://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2006/september/3090406.html
While a college student, Heidi Neumark took a year off from prestigious Brown University to be part of a volunteer program sponsored by a group called Rural Mission. She was sent to Johns Island—off the Carolina coast—where she learned from the sons and daughters of plantation slaves who allowed her to listen in as they sat around telling stories. In her words:
"The most important lesson I learned on Johns Island was from Miss Ellie, who lived miles down a small dirt road in a one-room, wooden home. I loved to visit her. We'd sit in old rocking chairs on the front porch, drinking tall glasses of sweet tea, while she'd tell me stories punctuated with Gullah expressions that would leap from her river of thought like bright, silver fish: 'Girl, I be so happy I could jump the sky!' I never could find out Miss Ellie's precise age, but it was somewhere between 90 and 100. Maybe she didn't know herself. She still chopped her own firewood, stacked in neat little piles behind the house.
"Miss Ellie had a friend named Netta whom she'd known since they were small girls. In order to get to Netta's house, Miss Ellie had to walk for miles through fields of tall grass. This was the sweet grass that Sea Island women make famous baskets out of, but it was also home to numerous poisonous snakes: coral snakes, rattlesnakes, water moccasins, and copperheads.
"Actually, Netta's home was not that far from Miss Ellie's place, but there was a stream that cut across the fields. You had to walk quite a distance to get to the place where it narrowed enough to pass. I admired Miss Ellie, who would set off to visit her friend full of bouncy enthusiasm, with no worry for the snakes or the long miles. I also felt sorry for her. Poor Miss Ellie, I thought, old and arthritic, having to walk all that way, pushing through the thick summer heat, not to mention the snakes.
"I felt sorry—until I hit upon the perfect plan. I arranged with some men to help build a simple plank bridge across the stream near Miss Ellie's house. I scouted out the ideal place—not too wide, but too deep to cross. I bought and helped carry the planks there myself. Our bridge was built in a day. I was so excited that I could hardly wait to see Miss Ellie's reaction. I went to her house, where she wanted to sit in her rocker and tell stories, but I was too impatient with my project. I practically dragged her off with me. 'Look!' I shouted, 'a shortcut for you to visit Netta!'
"Miss Ellie's face did not register the grateful, happy look I expected. There was no smile, no jumping the sky. Instead, for a long time, she looked puzzled, then she shook her head and looked at me as though I were the one who needed pity. 'Child, I don't need a shortcut.' And she told about all the friends she kept up with on her way to visit Netta. A shortcut would cut her off from Mr. Jenkins, with whom she always swapped gossip; from Miss Hunter, who so looked forward to the quilt scraps she'd bring by; from the raisin wine she'd taste at one place in exchange for her biscuits; and the chance to look in on the "old folks" who were sick.
"'Child,' she said again, 'can't take shortcuts if you want friends in this world. Shortcuts don't mix with love.'"
Shortcuts do not mix with love.
Do not try to shortcut or circumvent allowing our loved ones to do what they need to do. because we are impatient. Slow down. Take a breath. Rushing will not get us to the finish line any faster. Feelings will get hurt. Relationships will be broken. Love will not be expressed or felt.
We have to be prepared to be patient with those that we love, not only with our children, our spouses, but also our aging family members as well.
3. Finally, we love our aging family members by learning from them.
As I mentioned earlier, be available to listen, but also to learn from them. Those stories that they tell us have rich messages of hard work, love, faithfulness, commitment — all messages we need to hear today. As they walk down memory lane one more time, learn from the stories of loyalty to the family. Listen to the stories with a fresh ear, gleaning messages of hope and love that we can apply to our lives today.
Why We Need “Old People”
https://www.focusonthefamily.com/pro-life/why-we-need-old-people/
November 26, 2022
Lisa Piper
Author Lisa Piper shared this in an article with Focus on the Family:
“When I heard it, I was stunned and mortified. I was in church and walking near an older woman as she methodically pushed her walker. Painful sighs escaped her lips with each stiff movement. Two siblings passed as I heard a 14-year-old teenager spit, ‘I hate old people! Get me outta here!’
“In that moment, I ignored the little girl’s rudeness, hoping the older woman hadn’t heard her remarks. Later, I grieved over that moment. Partially, for the precious woman who received such disrespect. But also for the girl who was too naive to see she was robbing herself of a priceless gift. It reminded me of Ted Kuntz and his Najavo blanket that made ripples in the history of U.S. antiques.
“In June of 2001, Ted Kuntz retrieved an old blanket that hung over a chair in his home and headed out to the Antiques Road Show in Tucson, Arizona. The appraiser, Donald Willis, looked at the blanket and said to Kuntz, ‘Did you notice, when you showed this to me, that I kind of stopped breathing a little bit?’ Kuntz let out a nervous laugh as the appraiser revealed that the blanket was a Navajo-made Indian chief’s blanket. The appraiser added, ‘On a really bad day, this textile would be worth $350,000. On a good day, it’s about half a million dollars.’ The blanket collecting dust, hanging on a chair, was a national treasure!
“But there’s more to the story of the blanket, something tragic. Years before Kuntz owned the blanket, it belonged to his grandmother who was desperately poor. She had no idea that the heirloom that kept her warm at night was the remedy for her poverty.
“What one person saw as an old blanket, another recognized as a national treasure. After the masterpiece sold, it was displayed in a place of honor at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Today, that same blanket is worth about $2 million!
“A telling quote from Douglas Adams reads:
“‘Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.’
“What are we to do with a new culture that dismisses the wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and know-how of former generations? How do we create an environment of showing honor and recognizing real value?
“A key may be revealed in what happened to a man from California who sat watching the Navajo blanket episode. As he watched the unfolding of the appraisal, he remembered a similar rug tucked away in his closet. He, too, had a Navajo rug which he sold for $2 million!
“The reason the California man found value in the old rug was because of the appraiser. When the man of wisdom and understanding identified the treasure, the revelation caused others also to see the value.
“As each of us recognizes the creator and how He made every human a masterpiece, perhaps others will also open their eyes and see why we need ‘old people.’ We need their wisdom, insight and understanding.
In the stories told by our loved ones, there are mistakes to avoid, history to learn, joy to share and memories to be made.
We can only benefit from joining hands with those who have already braved the journey before us.
One of the best ways to love our families is to learn from the life lessons they discovered.
Conclusion
This morning, we must take care of our own families. We must provide what our families need. Paul said that children repay their parents for all of the hard work, the time, the effort, the money, the love spent on them as they were growing up when the children in turn love and care for their aging parents.
We cannot forget about the ones who may not be able to care for themselves anymore.
They deserve the same love that we show to our immediate families.
This morning, though, maybe we no longer have elderly members of our family still living.
Paul encourages us that as Christians, we ought to reach out to those who may not have families, those who may be alone and adopt them as our own. All of the things we have said this morning are just as applicable to those in our neighborhood, our communities, our church.
Provide for them.
Care for them.
Love them, especially the members of the body of Christ.
For the love of family, we must love all of the family.
