If we know the Savior’s care for us, and if we believe that he will give grace for every need, then we will rest in the arms of the one who carries us even to our old age (Isaiah 46:3–4). The grace of God enables us to age gracefully. The gospel empowers us to face old age with a firm belief in God’s unchanging care for us — not only his care for our souls, but also his care for our bodies.

A few summers ago, when my Pop-pop and Nana were both still with us, we had a family picnic. My Nana’s mind at that time was not what it once had been. Dementia was setting in. Things became so difficult that she couldn’t recall my name or the names of other family members. But there was a name she had not forgotten: the name of her Lord Jesus Christ. And she hadn’t forgotten the hymns she had spent her life singing.

At that picnic, my grandparents sang a few hymns for the rest of us. One of those hymns was “Does Jesus Care?” In the midst of the many challenges of aging, my Nana sang:

Does Jesus care when my heart is pained
Too deeply for mirth and song;
As the burdens press and the cares distress
and the way grows weary and long?

Then came the answer:

Oh, yes, he cares, I know he cares,
His heart is touched with my grief;
. . . I know my Savior cares. (Frank Ellsworth Graeff, 1901)

God’s Care for His Aging Saints

We have limited, and sometimes no, control over how gracefully our bodies and minds age. But if we know the Savior’s care for us, and if we believe that he will give grace for every need, then we will rest in the arms of the one who carries us even to our old age (Isaiah 46:3–4). The grace of God enables us to age gracefully. The gospel empowers us to face old age with a firm belief in God’s unchanging care for us — not only his care for our souls, but also his care for our bodies.

The Bible gives a poetic description of our aging bodies (Ecclesiastes 12:1–7). What happens when the days of our youth are gone? We will be bent with old age. Strength will fail, teeth will be missing, sight will falter. In Psalm 71, the psalmist gives voice to the fear we can experience when we think about growing old. He cries to the Lord, “Do not cast me off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent” (Psalm 71:9). In 2 Corinthians 4:16–18, Paul calls it outwardly wasting away.

For many, the difficulties of aging lead to despair. Grief and anxiety overtake us. We quickly become disoriented. But as life’s chapters begin to close, our union with Christ orients us to what is real. For those in Christ, aging is more about hope than fear, more about honor than dishonor, more about holiness than decay, more about gain than loss.

The realities of aging can fortify our hope by causing us to fix our eyes on the bright future Christ has for us.

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