Open Doors to Agelessness

The Christian psychologist Karl Jung once said that “Attitude is the mind’s paintbrush, it can color any situation.”  Certainly our attitude toward maturation (aging) colors our later lifespan.  

Human and spiritual growth can be likened to a process of opening new doors, while closing others.  To confidently open the doors to healthy life in our maturing years we need to gently close other doors on our previous life stage.    These doors lead to attitudes in our own mind.  But which doors need opening and which ones need closing? 

Doors that say: Being young is good and being older is not, need to be closed.  Doors that say things like:  Older people are irritable, or cranky, or slow, or forgetful, all need to be closed. 

Doors that say, Maturation brings new and deeper life in the Spirit; doors that say,  Aging is part of God’s “Good News because it enhances our spiritual character; doors that say:  Maturation is a classroom of life that brings deepened wisdom, patience, acceptance, peace, harmony, trust, truth, gratitude, vision, inspiration, and humility, are doors that need to be opened. 

Maturation, like beauty, is in the eyes of the beholder.  How we see aging greatly influences our maturation in all arenas of life, and especially as a believer.  Aging is a vital, growth-filled, and even power-packed part of God’s eternal plan for our salvation; we cannot shrink from it, we must embrace it with gusto. 

In our maturing years we’re called to modify our attitudes about a lot of things, but the most basic attitudinal modification of healthy maturation is the realization that aging is a gift of new life, a chance to see ourselves from a new and heightened perspective: fuller, kinder, and deeper.  Jesus told us: I make all things new.   And so it is that aging is one of the tools Jesus gives us to make us new!