I’m a Gen-Z woman, and I’m not afraid of aging. Honestly, I dream about it sometimes. I think about the wrinkles I’d like to see formed on my face—crow’s-feet from laughing often, rejoicing with those who rejoice. Lines on my forehead from listening well, remnants of a few thousand coffee dates with neighbors I love.
It’s true, we have an anti-aging industry worth 50 billion dollars, and skincare ads urge women to prevent signs of aging if they want to remain beautiful. Sometimes this makes me wonder if I should be afraid of growing old. But then I consider the older women in my life and local church—those three, four, five decades ahead of me—and I know there’s no need to be anxious. These faithful women are the most beautiful I know.
Beauty in Sincere Faith
I think of my neighbor just down the hill from my childhood home. She’s become like a grandmother to me. When I was navigating depression’s dark valley, she sat me on her sofa, took my smooth hands into her wrinkled ones, and looked me in the eyes. “I’ve walked this valley too, and God has been faithful to me.” Her testimony of God’s care for her echoes in my heart and makes me brave. Surely he’ll care for me too.
These faithful women are the most beautiful I know.
I think of the older woman at my church who seeks out college girls to invest in. Last year, she sat with me in our local Mexican restaurant as I grieved some hard circumstances. She listened as I cried—the lines on her forehead evidence that she heard me and cared. She asked careful questions, gently probing deeper. Then she offered me the steady, seasoned wisdom my young heart needed.
I think of the white-haired woman in my Sunday school class. We’ve never met formally, but her hunger for the Word is evident in the way she asks questions and engages in animated discussion. I smile watching her because I realize I can be excited about God’s Word when I’m her age too. The delight doesn’t have to fade; it can grow.
These women are Lois and Eunice to me—spiritual mothers passing on a sincere faith (2 Tim. 1:5). They’re cedars of Lebanon planted in the house of the Lord. “They flourish in the courts of our God. They still bear fruit in old age; they are ever full of sap and green, to declare that the LORD is upright” (Ps. 92:12–15). They have proven this proverb true: “Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life” (Prov. 16:31).
Beauty in Wisdom
Dear faithful older woman, please never be ashamed of your gray hair and wrinkled skin. As a Gen Zer, I want you to know I admire these qualities. I scan the church rows for gray, silver, and white because I want to know you and be known by you. I want to hear your stories. I want my youthful immaturity to be tempered by your wisdom.
Please, tell me how you got those crow’s-feet—how the Lord has dealt bountifully with you (Ps. 116:7), how his good gifts make you smile with your eyes. Tell me about those lines between your brows—how suffering has pressed you nearer to the Father’s heart, how you’ve learned to sing songs in the night (77:6).
Would you make Psalm 71:18 your prayer? “So even to old age and gray hairs, O God, do not forsake me, until I proclaim your might to another generation, your power to all those to come.”
Beauty in Discipleship
Perhaps you think you have nothing to offer the generations behind you. Maybe you worry you’re too “out of touch” to relate to the younger women you see worshiping on Sunday morning. Can I tell you gently that these are lies?
The Enemy wants to keep you from the joy of discipleship. You have decades on us—decades of beholding the might of the Lord so that you might proclaim it to us. Decades of being transformed from one degree of glory to another (2 Cor. 3:18). Decades of tasting and seeing that the Lord is good (Ps. 34:8). All this time, he’s been conforming you to Christ’s image, and it has made you lovely.
I want my youthful immaturity to be tempered by your wisdom.
The director of discipleship ministries at my university encourages student leaders to dream of what others could become in Christ. What if you looked at the young woman worshiping in the pew next to you and dreamed on her behalf? What if you took this a step further and invited her to imitate you as you imitate Christ (1 Cor. 11:1)? The Lord might use you to change her life.
Dear faithful older woman, the women of my generation need you. I need you. I have so much to learn, and there’s no one I’d rather learn from than you. I think you’re beautiful, and I want to look like you when I grow up.
Free eBook by Rebecca McLaughlin: ‘Jesus Through the Eyes of Women’
If the women who followed Jesus could tell you what he was like, what would they say?
Jesus’s treatment of women was revolutionary. That’s why they flocked to him. Wherever he went, they sought him out. Women sat at his feet and tugged at his robes. They came to him for healing, for forgiveness, and for answers. So what did women see in this first-century Jewish rabbi and what can we learn as we look through their eyes today?
In Jesus Through the Eyes of Women, Rebecca McLaughlin explores the life-changing accounts of women who met the Lord. By entering the stories of the named and unnamed women in the Gospels, this book gives readers a unique lens to see Jesus as these women did and marvel at how he loved them in return.
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