Medicare

Finding Hope Day by Day

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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.

Hope Finds the Right Person

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Weeping and gnashing of teeth. Wasted hours of precious time. A plea to God, “Help me fix this.”

It was a snafu with my supplemental insurance. When I switched in February, someone did not complete the job. I was getting letters from the old insurance which I had cancelled months ago.

So I called my insurance broker, and spoke to two people who both said, “You need to call Medicare.” They gave me the number to contact the right person.

The representative at Medicare told me I had called the wrong department. They would connect me to another area. Instead, they hung up.

So I went online and filled out the chat box. Wrote numerous explanations to a person who chatted back, “We can’t help you. Call your former supplemental insurance.”

At that point, I was using a few of the cleaner swear words.

After a lunch with some fortifying protein, a bite of chocolate and a quickie prayer, I once again called my supplemental insurance. This time, I reached just the right person — a woman who knew exactly what to do.

“I’m fixing this right now, ma’am. Thank you for bringing it to our attention.”

Relief was instantaneous. All I had to do was find the right person.

It is the searches in life that often bring discouragement. The rabbit trails. The run arounds. The hang ups.

But Hope survives when we find:

  • The right person willing to invest time and build a friendship
  • The traveling buddy who drives us to unusual thrift stores for treasure hunts
  • The mechanic who knows how to fix the current problem without inventing new ones
  • The Savior who graces us with peace [Hint: His name is Jesus and his contact number is John 3:16].

Finding the right person solves a host of problems we cannot resolve on our own. But the search requires patience and an abundant helping of Hope.

©2021 RJ Thesman – All Rights Reserved

Pastor Tanner finds the right person for his shattered heart. Check out The Year of my Redemption.

Finding Hope While in Limbo

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Hope wordIt is not an easy place to be – this no man’s land of unanswered prayers and constantly asked questions. For almost a year now, I have lived in a sort of limbo – questioning whether my role in life has somehow messed with my soul.

It is not a question of what I do, but of who I have become within this waiting period. I like my jobs. I love writing and I find coaching to be stimulating and fun. I love encouraging other writers and helping hurting women and putting the same 26 letters together to create different words and sentences.

Perhaps it is the age thing, edging closer to Medicare and not sure exactly how that happened when just yesterday I was 29.

Maybe it is because I am observing my wonderful son as he steps into a new job and moves forward to reach some of the goals of his life. I am so proud of him yet knowing that as he steps forward, I will be left behind. That emotional umbilical cord originates in the mother and stays connected. Only the child can truly cut it.

Perhaps this place of questioning comes from observing the changes in my mother’s condition, watching the Alzheimer’s steal her away piece by fragile piece. Scripture speaks the truth. Our lives are only a vapor…”a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes” (James 4:14).

Have I completed the tasks God designed for me to do before the foundation of the world? Can I still write more words, complete my goal of a book each year and yet find time to build relationships with the people I hope to reach?

Is God moving puzzle pieces around, fashioning the last pieces of this life on Earth so that he can sound that trumpet and bring his family home?

What is my role in these desperate days and am I taking as much care of my soul as I am of my role?

Trying to figure out the next stages of life can drive me crazy, so I travel back to the place where hope finds seeds of truth – that faith foundation that leaves the details in God’s hands.

My role is to persevere, to keep writing and coaching and serving, even as I wait for God to complete his sanctifying work in me.

And even if he calls me to live in this place of limbo, I seek hope within the waiting because I know he has a good plan and eventually – in the timing of his eternal clock – he’ll make it clear.

©2014 RJ Thesman – “Intermission for Reverend G” – http://amzn.to/1l4oGoo