Still Loved and Needed at Any Age

My daughter thinks it’s funny to tell her father that, at 51, his life is more than half over. (He’s a good sport—when she teases him about being old, he responds in a way that encourages her to continue teasing him.)

Based on the law of averages, though, she’s right. While I suppose it’s possible that Randy could live to be 102, it’s much more likely that he won’t.

I also totally understand why a 17-year-old thinks someone who over 50 is old. I thought the same when I was a teenager.

I think differently now, of course. Now, “old” is relative.

It’s a matter of perspective, and I’m finding that as we grow older, it’s constantly changing.

Maybe that’s why this past year I was much more aware of the fall foliage in my flowerbeds. Not just on the trees in my neighborhood, which were gorgeous. But on the shrubs, and especially the perennials.

One plant in particular caught my eye more than once. It’s some kind of ground-cover sedum that was here when we moved in 10 years ago and has proliferated since then.

In the summer, it sports green leaves and nondescript little yellow flowers. In the fall, though, the leaves absolutely glow.

It’s most lovely in the autumn, in other words.

As someone who is chronologically in the fall of my life, I find this to be especially heartening. Thankfully, what makes someone beautiful in her 20s is not the same thing that draws people to her when she’s 51.

It’s the reality of life, right? Smooth skin and toned muscles often give way to wrinkles and flab. One day you look in the mirror and see your mom’s jiggly upper arms, your dad’s eye bags and some random older stranger’s elbows.

You are still you, though. Those eye bags might be more pronounced, but they didn’t just arrive on your face when you turned 50. If you were to somehow remove them, you might look better to yourself but you wouldn’t look like yourself to other people.

My point is that beauty, as society and social media define it, fades as we get older. But a deeper beauty can—and often does—take its place. A beauty that flows from compassion, wisdom, confidence, an encouraging spirit, a heart that seeks the approval of God rather any single or group of humans.

On a woman like this, crow’s feet become smile lines. Frequent laughter softens facial wrinkles. Empathetic tears brighten eyes.

Truly, these women are more beautiful now than they were in their 20s and 30s. (And not just because the hairstyles are better now.)

If I could give younger women—college students, young adults, new moms, even middle-aged women —one bit of advice, it would be to welcome—perhaps even seek out intentionally—friendships with godly women who are further down life’s path.

Not a year or two, but maybe a decade or 15 years.

It’s good to have friends who are able to commiserate with you about all the current angst and joy in your life because they are experiencing something similar. What older friends offer, though, is encouragement. A listening ear. Perspective on your current and future seasons of life. An example of what getting older graciously and gracefully looks like.

Getting older is hard. The older we get, the harder it is.

At any age, we may feel like we don’t measure up—appearance-wise or productivity wise—to all the younger women on Instagram or even at next to us at church. We may feel as if we are no longer useful to anyone anymore.

Not one bit of that is true.

No matter how old we are, there are people in our lives who still need us—our prayers, our presence, our encouragement, our wisdom, our comfort. They don’t sit around thinking about whether we look older today than we did five or 10 years ago.

In fact, they probably don’t think about our age at all.

They love us for who we are—eye bags and all.

♥ Lois

P.S. I’m linking up this week with #tellhisstory, InstaEncouragements, Recharge Wednesday, Let’s Have Coffee and Grace & Truth.