It happens quickly. We’re marching along in life, then one day we wake up and we’re called 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 and youth of high school. It does not carry with it the joy of a new life, looking forward to college or a job opportunity. Instead, it feels more like an ending, the foreshadowing of goodbye.
The snail mail and 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.
Suddenly, we feel much older and a bit rejected. The retirement we saved for seems inadequate. We did not plan for multiple appointments with various types of doctors, surgeries, and the increase of health insurance. We did not plan to be so old. The science around any type of virus tells us we are at risk.
Now what do we do?
If we have defined our life by a faith walk in the divine Trinity, 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.
This new senior status calls us to a deeper level of trust. We find encouragement and hope in connecting with other believers and in spending even more time in Scripture. We have more time to read some of the spiritual writers we admire. My list includes: Dallas Willard, Richard Foster, Ruth Haley Barton, Carolyn Custis James, and some surprise authors I discover at the library or on Amazon.
The main goal during this status change is to live intentionally — day by day. To focus on the presence of God surrounding each moment. To stay in gratitude for the body parts that do still work, for the love of family and friends, for the community of believers, and for God’s sustaining grace.
May each of my readers — no matter what the demographic — find joy in the daily presence of God. May you breathe in of God’s grace and find purpose for your senior years.
“Blessed be the Lord who bears our burdens and carries us day by day.” Psalm 68:19 Amplified
©2025 RJ Thesman – All Rights Reserved
For daily devotions during your senior status change, check out Day by Day: Hope for Senior Wisdom.
There was a time in human history in which lifespans were only a fraction of what we can expect today. There was a time when risking everything to find a better life sent people across vast oceans or prairies to search for better lives. With the knowledge that weather, disease, or dangerous aliens might end their lives at any time. I am grateful to have reached the “senior” point in 21st Century life on earth, and accept God’s will for me and those I love. Grateful for what I have and can still hope for.
Great attitude, Stu.
Thanks Rebecca—good reminders.
Thanks for the comment, Judy.