Finding Hope Day by Day

It happens quickly. We’re marching along in life, then one day we wake up as a ‘senior.’ No one has called us a senior since high school. Somehow, the label does not fit.

This senior status is different from the excitement of high school. It feels more like an ending, the foreshadowing of goodbye.

Suddenly, we feel much older and a bit rejected. We did not plan to be so old.

Snail mail and the electronic inbox now contain introductions to AARP and Medicare. We receive brightly colored promos about the latest greatest hearing aid.

Discounts for cataract surgery. Vitamins and supplements to alleviate joint pain.

We are faced with several questions:

• Will I run out of money before I run out of time?
• How can I organize all these medical appointments suddenly filling my schedule?
• Why am I such an at-risk person now? Should I expect to suffer from COVID?
• How much did my grocery budget just increase? Seriously?
• What am I going to do? Do I really have to go back to work?

If we have defined our life by a faith walk, then we continue to do what has always worked before. We fasten our hope to the One and only unchangeable force that has kept us going all these decades.

We continue to trust in our loving God, and we learn a new set of skills to persevere during our senior years. We might even memorize Psalm 68:18, “Blessed be the Lord who bears our burdens and carries us day by day” (AMPC).

As I began to face some of the issues labeled “senior,” I decided to focus on how to find additional hope. A continued intention to journal my thoughts and keep writing new words helped me stay on task.

To find a purpose for these years. To continue to pay it forward, say it forward and write it forward.

My daily meditations soon became small stories which fit easily into the devotional format. Other writers and friends encouraged me to post about finding hope in the senior years. “Wisdom” became a major theme.

So I wrote about physical issues, emotional mountains and valleys, spiritual searchings and mental health within the demographic of seniors.

Soon, the words became clearer and formed the usual format for a book. I sent the manuscript to my theological advisor and his wife, the couple who have interceded for me throughout the years and encouraged my writing goals. An email sent to my patrons brought more encouragement and the setting of accountability goals.

Within a few months, the book was ready for publication. So here is the shameless promotion, with the valid hope that these words will help seniors find extra encouragement for their days.

Different titles include:

• Trusting IN God versus Trusting God
• The Power of ‘Let’
• Making Wise Decisions
• New Mercies Every Morning
• Taking Root
• Living in the Yet
• When Heaven is Home
• The Why Question

And many more. So check it out. Day by Day: Hope for Senior Wisdom is available on Amazon as a print book or an e-book. Share it with your friends in senior living or your care group at church.

And place your hope in the only One who knows every demographic we journey through yet never leaves us to do it alone.

©2022 RJ Thesman – All Rights Reserved

God carries us day by day by another day. Day by Day: Hope for Senior Wisdom.