When I'm 80 | Lydia Stoesz
Lydia offers a beautiful reflection on the gifts that can come with aging well as a person of faith.
We just celebrated my mum’s 80th birthday.
It was a celebration that may not have happened because she was worried that once the people in her church knew she was 80 she wouldn’t be asked to be a leader, sit on the deacon’s board, run Vacation Bible School, lead the 55+ group in her church, mentor what she would call the “young” women (though, when you’re 80, that’s nearly everyone), help a homeschooling mom with teaching her kids, and more. Once they knew she was an “old lady” she would be shoved to the side and her ideas wouldn’t matter. Then she realized that Joshua and Moses were also octogenarians when they were given leadership of Israel so she figured she could be a leader of her Saskatchewanian Baptist Church regardless of her age and it would probably be okay Then she realized that Joshua and Moses were also octogenarians when they were given leadership of Israel so she figured she could be a leader of her Saskatchewanian Baptist Church regardless of her age and it would probably be okay.
As I reflect on who my mum is, her age, the changes she’s experienced and her mindset toward the future I feel there is a lot to learn from her.
My mum was born in England just after the start of World War II. She survived the London bombings, went to kindergarten carrying a gas mask, and grew up with her parents traumatized by war and wanting to make a better life for their kids in Canada.
My mum became a Christian at the end of the 1950s, when she was in nurses training. She entered into a church system where women stayed home and raised their children, and good Christian women submitted to the leadership of their husbands. She entered into a Christianity where you prayed using the “real King James language of the Bible”: “Heavenly Father, we ask that thou wouldst come in our hour of need and bestow thy blessings to us thy humble servants...” kinds of prayers. She married a guy who was attending seminary to become a pastor (the kind that are complete with a suit, tie, cardigan and pastor hair) and she was a rebel pastor’s wife… because she didn’t play the piano. Insert audible gasp!
She took some seminary courses to better equip herself and annoyed the professors at the seminary because she knew a bit more than they expected and was well read and wrote well... for a woman.
She quit her career as a nurse to stay home, raise a family and be the pastor’s wife.
Then the 80s happened.
Prices went up, the NIV happened, we started singing choruses in church, and the smalltown pastor in a small Baptist church didn’t make enough to afford a growing family of six. So mum went back to school, upgraded her nursing degree, and went back to work.
She retired at age 70 from a role as the director of homecare for the health region where she lived, having worked her way up by taking over each of her boss’s job as they left.
She learned how to use a computer (Commodore 64; Apple 2E; PC and she even became a whiz on the Blackberry by the time she retired.) She had the goal of not being the “fuddy-duddy” lady who didn’t know the first thing about technology as she grew older. She’s now the old lady with her iPad, and iIPhone, texting me about all the things she notices, sending pictures of the flowers in her garden, and FaceTiming the grandkids.
She still consults about rural and remote health studies through the University of Saskatchewan and has won the Queen’s Jubilee Medal.
She’s decided that her retirement is a time for focusing on what she’s interested in, so she carves out time for Bible study and prayer. She has embarked on a “new” way of looking at the Bible: she reads it, asks God what it means and what he has for her, and by the next day she has a new insight. Right now, she’s tackling the Book of Revelation.
Last Mother’s Day, I bought her a commentary on the Book of Revelation by N.T. Wright. She’s pretty impressed with this young guy but thinks maybe she has a few things to teach him because he sometimes takes Revelation too literally, in her opinion. Every time we talk on the phone, she eagerly shares her new insights into Revelation with me.
So as she turns 80, here are my hopes and prayers for when I’m 80: I hope I’m a bit like her.
I hope I’m willing to have God change my mind about what I’ve been thinking at 40.
I hope I’m excited about what is coming in the future for those around me.
I hope that as my world in some aspects shrinks because of my abilities, that my perspective and prayer life grows my world exponentially.
I hope I’m excited to dive into new theology and see the Bible in fresh ways.
As I was preparing to share a few things for her birthday party, a quote by Andy Stanley came to mind: “When your memories exceed your dreams, the end is near.” Okay, let’s not be morbid—he’s talking about churches, not people—but I think this actually sums up my mum in the opposite way.
She’s young—not just young-at-heart, but actually young. She’s young-minded, young-spirited. She tells people she feels like she’s a 50-year-old (but since my oldest sister is now 51 she has to go with saying that she feels 60). Her 54-year-old friend figured my mum was probably about 10 years older than her, so was surprised when the reason for the 1939-themed birthday party was that that was my mum’s birthyear. She is young because her dreams for Planet Earth exceed her 80 years of memory… because her dreams for Planet Earth are found in Scripture and found in her faith in Christ and in his dreams.
Cheesy?
Of course—it’s an 80-year-old’s birthday bash after all—but still true.
She is young-minded and young-spirited because her world is expanding and her dreams are growing as she sees more and more of life.
She’s not one of those old ladies talking about the scary news, or the bad things happening with the young people these days… Nope. She’s talking about the Beast of Revelation and what that symbolizes and wondering what it actually means when all of hell is thrown in the lake of fire… and she’s imagining what the end looks like when Jesus restores and renews all things… and she is searching as to whether that is a global, universal thing or a personal thing… and she’s rethinking her old views on everything.
But the future doesn’t scare her.
Because she knows the One who is in the future.
So she’s excited to find out what’s next.
