Aging Is a Discipleship Issue

Jen Wilkin

Women think of aging like it’s this disease they don’t want to contract. There are shots that can keep you from getting the disease. There are pills that can keep you from getting the disease. Aging is is the equivalent not of increasing in value, but of moving into obsolescence. You Melissa,

Courtney Doctor

welcome to the deep dish, a podcast where we like to have deep conversations about deep truths. I am Courtney doctor, and I am here with my dear friend, Melissa Kruger, and today’s episode is probably the episode that I’m not sure you want to be invited onto it is on aging. And so as I introduce my guest, I’m not sure how you feel about the fact that you are the guest on this episode. Fire with

Jen Wilkin

your dear friend Melissa and your hag friend.

Courtney Doctor

Yes, no, because I will the oldest at the table. But we are joined by our dear friend Jen Wilkin. So we are glad to be talking about this. I do we want to say how old we are, yeah, yeah, I do too. Okay, I’m 50. I’m 56 but I’m almost 57 so probably I will be 57 and this is

Melissa Kruger

okay. And I am 50 I’m the baby. She

Courtney Doctor

is just the generation gap baby, skin,

Jen Wilkin

adorable. I’m 55 veering toward 56 rapidly

Melissa Kruger

and amazing. You are both grandmothers. I mean, y’all do not look like my picture in my mind, of like my grandmother. Have you

Jen Wilkin

seen all of the discussions around like The Golden Girls TV show? Yes. How old they actually were? I seriously, I’m as old as one of

Unknown Speaker

them. No, yeah, no, we

Melissa Kruger

should have called the podcast the golden rule, the golden

Courtney Doctor

this episode at least like Betty White every day of the week. Seriously, but

Jen Wilkin

it is really interesting how, like the cultural idea of what it means to be a certain age has has changed. I know dramatically. I know,

Courtney Doctor

yeah. How old do you feel inside

Unknown Speaker

24 Do you

Courtney Doctor

really? Yeah, do you really? That’s a lot younger than you were going

Jen Wilkin

to say, no. I’ve just been stuck in 24 in my head. That’s

Courtney Doctor

fascinating. What about you late 30s? 38 I was gonna say 32

Jen Wilkin

especially smarter, sort of slower, 24 that’s not at all, no,

Courtney Doctor

but I think there is something to the fact that at every age, it’s shocking. I was talking to one of my daughter in laws this past week about that, that she’s like, I can’t believe that I am, you know, whatever age she was and I was like, I know, I think you feel that at absolutely every age. Well, okay, so as we’ve gone through this process, what are some of your favorite things about getting to this early to mid 50s?

Jen Wilkin

Well, I think it’s like that. You know they’ll say, I don’t think I’m smart, but I’m not as dumb as I used to be. Like, I know I don’t know everything, but I know more than I used to know. And also some of it is, like, you’re you can, you can assess, like, just exactly what you don’t know a lot better than you could when you were younger. And and I think just, you know, the clarity that comes with, oh, like, I’m not going to be a neurosurgeon. I’m not going to be a famous Baker. Like, the number of potentialities in front of me is getting smaller and smaller, and there’s such a ground I think, I thought when I was younger and had felt like a lot of potentialities, you know, it’s like, well, it’ll be all over by the time I’m 55 right? I mean, what is there to look forward to accept death and and I feel just so much clarity and purposefulness around the things that are the path in front of me. And that feels really good. It does. Yeah, yeah.

Melissa Kruger

It is a little bit more of a stable season when I think about the 20s, yeah, everything was changing constantly. Yes, where you live, it’s all questions. Yeah, there’s so many question marks, and how’s it all going to pan out? Yes, yes. So it’s settled somewhat. It doesn’t mean it’s easier. Doesn’t mean there aren’t hard things, but there’s kind of a settledness of, okay, this is generally what I’m doing with my life, versus in your 20s. I think there’s just pressure to figure out, what am I going to do with my life? Like, I’m watching, I don’t know, your wife, our kids are all kind of in that age, yeah, and watching them. I’m like, Oh, I don’t want to do that again, right? Yeah,

Jen Wilkin

right, yeah. I don’t look back at like, even though I feel like 24 in my head, I’m not like, Man, I wish I could be 24 again? No, although I loved I haven’t had a season of life that I haven’t I know enjoyed. But did you guys have the sense that once you got to a certain age, it was just sort of like this drop off of into, oh for sure, who even cares what happens after that age? Because it can’t be anywhere near as exciting as you. Those earlier stages of life, yeah,

Courtney Doctor

and so far, I’ve not found that to be true. No, no. I think at every stage I’ve said I actually wouldn’t go back. Yes, there’s, there’s a joy in that, and there’s a and I’ve said this in relationship to my marriage, that we’ve, we’ve worked so hard, it’s become so valuable. I remember the first time I heard the Shania Dwayne song, looks like we made it. And I was like,

Unknown Speaker

I think we did. You know, there’s

Courtney Doctor

like, that hard earned thing that whatever it is, it just becomes more valuable. And that doesn’t have to be marriage. It can be you have persevered through all the struggles of singleness and come to a place of whatever it is that you’re wrestling through, and you come to that place of not just acceptance of the things, but value of the things, where you see how the Lord has has used it. When did you and I’m asking this question because I have such a vivid memory of it, I had gone over, I was probably in my early 40s, gone over to younger friends of my house. And as I left, she said to me, thank you so much for coming over. I’ve been wanting to meet with an older woman, yeah. And I thought, Is she wanting me to introduce her to one? Like, I really didn’t, didn’t know I had to kind of get in my car and, like, look in my mirror, like, I think she meant me. But when did it first hit you? Or did you have any of those moments where you’re like, Oh, my word, I am now the older woman? Well, for

Melissa Kruger

me, it’s more the absence of some things. It used to be when I would go speak at places, they would be like, Oh, you’re you’re the speaker. Do you have children? Yeah, which was, you’re really young, and I don’t hear those questions anymore. No one looks surprised when I get out, you know? And it even, even at the grocery store, because I’ve always had a young looking face, you know? I mean it, well, can I say this if you’re buying alcohol, no one’s guarding me anymore, right? I mean, like, there are things that I feel like I I kept for a while, that no one’s asking those questions anymore, and they say, ma’am a lot, yes, ma’am, yes. Like, who are you talking to?

Jen Wilkin

Well, I started talking a lot about church mothers and how we needed church mothers in the church. Because I’m like, doesn’t everybody want that? Thinking I want and and then people at my church started calling me Mama, Jen. And I was like, oh, oh, wow, oh. But really, in my case, we we had moved in 2007 we moved from Houston to Dallas, and I went from a church that had an older population to a church that was much younger, and I was 38 and I remember how it was like moving four hours north made me go from too young to have any credibility to so old that I was supposed to be a source and fountainhead of wisdom, just because of the context of where We were doing ministry. And so I definitely felt my age more, you know, at the at the church with the younger people, because you do realize, oh, they are looking at me, and they think I am decrepit, because they’re all 21 and 22 Yeah. So I do think a lot of it has to do with, like, who you’re in proximity to Yeah,

Melissa Kruger

and I feel like I’m like, no, no, I just, I just got married.

Jen Wilkin

Yeah? I feel like, yeah, yeah, you did. No, you did not. Oh yeah, 27 years.

Melissa Kruger

Yeah, it’s older than I am. Yeah, we’re starting to see that the seminary now, my husband’s at a seminary, and for the first time, the students are my kids ages, and that kind of freaked me out. Yeah,

Courtney Doctor

when we was a seminary in our 40s, my husband looked at me, and he was like, some of the professors are younger than us, and it’s just that, and the kids in the class, the kids listen to that, the young adults in the class would call me, you know, Mom, are you going to make a, like, a study guide for us? And it was so it Yeah, kind of all. And it was at a move. It was sort of that change of, oh, wow, I am really stepping in as as an older woman. And so it was. It was hard at first. And so what do you think? How does our current cultural moment, how does our particular culture really impact our ability? And I don’t mean just the three of us, I just mean all women. How does it impact how we age and how either easy or difficult it is?

Jen Wilkin

I mean, we, you know, life has a has a symmetrical sweep to it, and we have a culture that only values one half of it, maybe not even all of the all of the one half. And I would say that really the way that I find that women think of aging is like it’s this disease they don’t want to contract. And so there are shots that can keep you from getting the disease, there are pills that can keep you from getting the disease, and there are surgeries that can keep you from that can preserve you from the disease. And. And it’s such a an odd way to think about the aging process, but I think it’s a response to a very true idea that is embedded in our culture, that aging is is the equivalent, not of increasing in value, but of moving into obsolescence. And so like and nobody wants to be obsolete. And we understand obsolescence in a way that even previous generations didn’t, because we probably have our first iPhone in a drawer somewhere, or, you know, like I found my Walkman from right, from when I was in high school, and my husband has a jam box up in the attic that his mom, his mom engraved his name on because just in case anyone was going to steal it. So just if you guys want to play a cassette, let me know, you know, and I think about like, there’s that jam box, and then two floors down is this vase that I received when my mom passed away. That’s worth, it’s not worth, like, 1000s of dollars, but it’s worth maybe 150 200 and if I keep it another 30 or 40 years, it will increase in value. And we don’t think of the elderly like that. We think of the elderly like the jam box that they’re obsolete. But that’s, that’s, that’s a new cultural development, like speaking worldwide, and historically, that’s a new way of thinking about the aging.

Courtney Doctor

My husband does ministry in Kenya, and they have called him aged, and it’s a compliment. And so I have also started calling him aged because it’s fun and but you’re right, it is not something that our culture values. And so how does that? How do we, no matter where we are on this, you know, this aging journey, this aging spectrum, how? How do we end up shaping our own thoughts, not about our aging, but about the aging of others? How do we push against that in our own hearts

Melissa Kruger

well, and even just to answer your other question, I was thinking the other day, how much I am being shaped by Instagram. I normally think of it as, Oh, the poor young girls who are being shaped by Instagram, right? You know, how difficult must it be to be 18 or 20 or I can even remember on Facebook when all the young moms were posting their babies at three months and six months, when the onesies, yeah. And I was like, I’m so glad I didn’t have that. That would be real, real pain to get organized. But yet I’m realizing, oh, it really is impacting me, yeah. Like, I’m looking to see what, what should a 50 year old look like? Yes and, and, to be honest, we we live in public spaces so it can be intimidating. Will I lose value? Oh, yeah, yeah. Will people still listen because they’re listening to the 29 year old Instagramer, right? Right? And will they still value? Yes, and it’s and it’s often related to beauty, to be quite honest, because even those 29 influencer and yeah, influencers are often highly attractive. And so there’s this, yeah, I think we have more images put forth, for sure, and it’s impacting all of us, whereas I don’t really remember my mom talking or thinking about this a lot, I think there was maybe just more of a settled acceptance. I don’t know if that’s true. How do you I mean, definitely

Courtney Doctor

my grandmother, I would say there was just that settled acceptance. And almost, you know, and I almost look at that now with a little bit of envy. You know that I wish that that was because I know for me, it’s it’s a constant act of asking the Lord to give me self forgetfulness and humility, just even in my own aging body, that I wouldn’t get preoccu unduly preoccupied with it.

Jen Wilkin

Well, I think historically, self forgetfulness has been one of the gifts of the aging process, and now we’re in a cycle where even in your 20s, you’re supposed to be thinking about wrinkles before you even have them. So like even in the only decade where they weren’t even supposed to be on your mind, you’re being told that they should be. And so you get into this cycle where I’ve sometimes thought of it, it’s like elective body dysmorphia, where we’ve chosen to have a dysmorphia where, you know, like, I just said I felt like I’m 24 you guys said, an age that’s younger than you are. And then there’s a whole industry that rushes toward that and goes well if you feel that way on the inside, why wouldn’t you look why don’t you want your outside to look like the way your inside feels? Well, it’s because the way I feel on the inside is not true. It’s not and what the Bible tells us is you got to pay attention to the truth of your age no matter how you feel. Feel. And I’ll feel it like people will often say to me, because I haven’t I’m not covering my gray. I have not really gotten I’ve got it like right here at my temples. And this is not a we’re not about to yell at you about whether you’re dying your hair or not, just to be the wait, wait for the you are dying. Yeah, yeah. And so I’m not like saying dying your hair is bad. I have not really had to, because my gray has come in so slowly, and so people would say to me, Oh, you look so young for your age. And I have to really ask myself, what is that feeling I just had when they said that to me? Did I was I glad they said that? Because we really think that is the highest compliment you can pay to a woman in our age demographic, is that you don’t look your age

Melissa Kruger

rather than I’m so blessed to have had that conversation with you because of the wisdom you gave to me that Yeah. So even, even what we think would be a compliment, well,

Jen Wilkin

and like, younger women, again, it goes back to obsolescence, right? Like, if you’re viewed as growing obsolete because, like, maybe you don’t even know how to download the app onto your phone and you need someone to help you, then why would I come to you for advice on how to raise my children or how to fix my marriage? And there’s not a sense of the wisdom that is accumulated. So there’s the wisdom that comes from God that just drops on us, if we ask him, but then there’s also this wisdom of aging, that is from seeing the same things repeat again and again, and from learning our own hard lessons through our own repeated mistakes or our repeated successes at things. And that is something that I think younger generations are not. They don’t they don’t want to look to an older generation for that, because, again, if we can’t even handle the tech, right? How can we handle what do we actually know? What do we actually know? I mean, the world has changed so much. How do we and this is to say nothing of even like the divides in the way that we view politics or the way that we view religion, because of how we’ve been so bifurcated through social media and all kinds of forces. So

Melissa Kruger

as women, older women, I mean, I used to say, Well, I’m not in midlife. And Mike was like, how long you planning to live? You’re not at midlife yet. You know, how long is this gonna go on? But what responsibility do you feel and how you age as part of discipling the next generation. Like, how is this a discipleship issue? We kind of want to just say a little bit about like, what I do doesn’t impact any anyone else you know. Like, how does it impact other people the choices we make, right? Yeah, there’s

Jen Wilkin

no such thing as a decision that only impacts you.

Courtney Doctor

No such thing the decisions for good, the decisions for bad. And honestly, I think there’s never been a more it’s never been more needed than now to say, let me at least show you an option of aging without all of taking advantage of all of the opportunities that we have to look as if we’re not aging. And so sometimes it’s just showing that way of saying, you know, it’s okay let your gray grow out. I mean, I’m I’m not, so that’s convicting, right? But no, but it’s, it’s whether it’s just the clothes we choose or or what we decide to do with hair and face or body. I mean those things and how much time we’re spending on them. I mean, those are all discipleship issues.

Melissa Kruger

I remember one of the things my mom said to me, she has had breast cancer. She’s had a double mastectomy. She I remember we were standing in the dressing room, and, yeah, we’re getting changed. And there are just changes when you you know you don’t have to wear certain undergarments and things when you have had a double mastectomy. But she just looked at me and she said, I’m I’m gonna get teared up. She just looked at me and said, I’m just so glad to be alive. Yes, yeah. And so, and I think about, I had a dear friend, Debbie, who died of breast cancer, and she said, I just wish I could see my kids graduate she didn’t get to and you know, when you think about aging is a gift, and we too often think of it as a disease, you know? And I could see it my mom, rather than be ashamed of the scars of aging. She embraced the life she’d been given, you know, and I think that it is it, it really is a discipleship issue. In that moment, I now hear a different voice in my head. When I start aging. I’m just so glad to be here. Yes,

Jen Wilkin

well, and we’re living longer than people used to, you know, even at the turn of the 20th century, average life expectancy was something like 49 years old and so and so. I think that, like, death was a more present reality for previous generations, and it and it happened in front of you. It didn’t happen in a hospital. And I think that’s another thing that we are missing. Saying is the overlap of these different age groups. Like, it’s not just that the that the aging or the elderly are obsolete, it’s that they should be out of sight. They should be out of view and and so, you know, I’m living now with I’ve got my in laws who live a block and a half away. I spend a day week with my parents, who are an hour and a half away. I’m having a lot of overlap with them in their, in their, their latter years, and it isn’t so instructive and helpful to me in much the same way that I would say that like Jeff and I have been formed by being around younger people a lot because of the church that we were in, and now we live in a college town, and so we are around younger people a lot, and it impacts the way you think about a lot of things and and I think what we’ve forgotten is there’s there’s a two way benefit. There’s a benefit to the young by being around those who are older. There’s a benefit to the old by being around those who are younger. I saw all summer long, the way that my in laws, who are 80, interacted with their great grandchildren, who were living with us for the summer. And those are that is shaping across all of those, you know, the four generations that are, that are represented in that in that moment and but instead, what we think is, when you’re elderly, you are an obligation, who requires care by someone else. And I, I learned so much, you know, in the death of my mom, by by being the one who gave that care and thinking about, you know, when I was an infant, I didn’t apologize for needing that kind of care, and I certainly don’t want her to apologize for needing it now, but those are the kinds of lessons that we only learn when we when we choose that proximity. And many of us, not only are we not choosing it, it’s almost like it’s an apparition we don’t want in front of us. Well, and

Courtney Doctor

I’ve heard you say before, Jen, and it was so helpful, that idea that, you know, we have, we have embraced, culturally, the idea that we don’t want to be a burden. And there’s a lot of pride in that. There’s a lot of it. It can be self righteous, it can be prideful, it can be so many things that are not helpful. And so even the idea of being willing to be a burden is an understanding, not only of our own limitedness and the fact that we’re finite, but also that God is at work as he’s teaching others to I mean, I’ve cared for my mother in law. You’ve cared for aging parents, but speak to that, because I think that’s a really, I think that is for anybody listening who is obviously, you know, aging and pushing into the older years. I think that that’s a good word to remind women that there’s actually benefit and blessing and being a burden,

Jen Wilkin

absolutely well, and this has to do with a theology of a body, which is a bigger question that we should probably talk about that. And I’m forgetting who wrote this book, but I’m going to say the book title, and we can maybe link to it in the show notes, but it was called on getting out of bed. And what he talks about, he’s actually talking about depression and how hard it is to get out of bed. And he gets into talk about, like, the reason that we get out of bed is not for us, it’s for everyone else too. And he then he gets into this whole discussion about the giving of care and the receiving of care, and how any time we’re in a stage of life where we are the giver of care, we know that we are giving it humbly, anticipating the day when we will be the recipient. And it was just such a beautiful, salient thought that we when you’re young, you perceive that you will never be the one who needs care, and you don’t remember, you forgotten the years in which you’ve already received it, but when we remember receiving it, then we’re better able to anticipate and appreciate the seasons in which we give it, and then in the season in which, if you live a long life, you will be returned, essentially, to a state of infant hood. And from whom will you receive that care? And we’ve joked, yeah, I do want to be a burden to my children, not in the sense that, you know, like I want to be a horrible health health care giving nightmare to them, but what if? What if we’re actually robbing younger generations of something by deciding that we’re going to place ourselves out of view in those moments and and then just to have been the recipient of the gift of having gotten to be a part of that caregiving. I think I want this for all of my kids. It’s a it’s a precious and holy trust. But I do think what we get back to is, you know, an elderly body is not useful. It’s not able to contribute in the way that. A healthy, youthful body can and that is the that’s the thing we have to come face to face with, right? Is we think it’s about losing our looks, until we have the health crisis, and then all of a sudden, it reframes everything. And you realize, I don’t care if I’m the most hideous wreck in town, if I have a body that works. And I remember, you know, years ago, when I started teaching on the resurrection, what’s the promise of having a resurrected body and in in the estrogen pond that is women’s ministry, so often, women’s conception of receiving their new body was, I’m finally going to have a flawless complexion. I’m finally going to have thinner thighs, which is the luxury. And I use that, you know, ironically, the luxury opinion of someone who has not suffered a true crisis of health, because our bodies are given to us because the embodied Christ is seated at the right hand of God, the Father, and until such time as he returns, we are the hands and feet of him and

Melissa Kruger

those new bodies. You know, Jesus’s resurrected body actually had scars absolutely so we’re not promised what they’ll be like, but we know they’ll be perfected, but so there’ll be a right understanding of what they are. So is

Courtney Doctor

that what a perfect body looks like, yes, and what it’s for, and what it’s yeah

Jen Wilkin

and what it’s for. And that’s not to say God bless those among us who are highly decorative in their appearance. Like way to go. I do thank God. I seriously think that the aging process is easier for people who have never had a season of being remarkably attractive. I mean it, there’s just less to let go of, and it’s no secret that in a culture that fetishizes youth, we also fetishize attractiveness. And those two go hand in hand. People understand intuitively that to be attractive is to command a form of power, which means that the aging process is, at bare minimum, the relinquishing of a form of power. But I would argue, and I know you guys would say, it’s also the taking up of another more lasting and significant form of power, for lack of a better word.

Courtney Doctor

Well, Psalm 9012 teaches a number our days, that we may gain a game of wisdom, that you’re gaining something and and it’s something that is so valuable, and something that will actually, we will actually have in eternity, yeah, which? Which, these others we, we won’t. And so for those listening that are in their youth, they’re in their prime, and so define that however and what right not. It’s not but for those what? What words would you say to them? What can a woman do in her 20s and 30s and even 40s to gain this heart of wisdom. What? What can she do now that will help her age in a way that is cherishing? The more valuable thing

Melissa Kruger

is this the time I should insert the skincare line we’re sponsored. Yeah, this cream exactly you will, you’re, you’re, you will have the Jesus shine.

Jen Wilkin

Is there something Daniel diet equivalent for face creams?

Melissa Kruger

But, you know, I do think about what First Peter says. It’s an imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit. And I actually think of that as a spirit that’s constrained by the Holy Spirit to walk in the ways of the Lord. So in some ways that that type of I, you know, I think of Mary when she’s sitting at Jesus’s feet, learning from him. And, you know, there’s just this I want to learn from you and do whatever you ask me to do. And then I think of this other image of Mary when she is at Jesus’s feet, breaking this expensive jar of perfume. And she’s, you know, I mean, that’s an uncomfortable thing to do. She’s doing this in a room full of men, and yet this is the story that will be told wherever the Gospels preach. We don’t know what she looked like. We don’t know anything really, we just know she sat at his feet, and then she worshiped us feet. And to me, that’s this picture of beauty well. And then you

Jen Wilkin

think about Christ, you know, there was nothing in his appearance that would draw us to him. And I think I’ve often thought, like, why? Like, it didn’t have to be that way, why? And then I will say. We’ve talked about like, when did you realize? When did you realize you were invisible, you know, like that. When did it happen for you? Where you thought, Oh, no one is looking at me and wondering, what are my beauty tips, you know? And I thought about how when that turn happens, you have a choice. You can either rail against it, or you can recognize the newfound power. And I don’t mean to make it all sound like it’s power, but the newfound power that it grants you, because I remember thinking, Oh, they’re really going to listen to my words now, because they’re not going to look at my face and think, I wonder how she got, you know, her eyes to look that way, or how, you know, no one is thinking, wow, I really wish I looked like her, which means that my looks will in no way be a distraction to the most important thing. And it also, as you mentioned in passing earlier, there’s the there’s it’s a double edged sword, right? Because they may decide that you’re irrelevant, but I believe that there are ways to model substance that are so compellingly beautiful, and that that’s the that’s our that’s our hope is that on that other side of the hump, you know, where you’re, where from a physical standpoint, you have slid into invisibility, that the luminosity of what’s happening inside of you begins to be evident. And you know, there’s a saying, bodies decline. People develop. Yeah, your body’s going to decline. If you’ve ever read in the paper, you know how they’ll have the This couple has been married for 70 they had their 70 year anniversary. Neither one of them is smoking hot, and it’s the most beautiful.

Courtney Doctor

Yes, when they put the wedding pictures, yeah, you’re like, I How did that happen? Yes, but no

Jen Wilkin

one would say they’re not beautiful. I love the

Melissa Kruger

word, though, luminosity. That’s gonna be our skincare line.

Jen Wilkin

I think there probably is one already. I bet if we google this, that’s

Melissa Kruger

the goal. Yes, not like, yeah, because they do. There’s this sweet glow. You know, of those older couples, you know, I mean, it’s different, it’s a different beauty. But

Jen Wilkin

have you known, have you known someone you’re like, I think about my grandmother, who lived to 91 Yeah, and she was so beautiful in her because she got she got softer, she got it was like all of the best things about her. Well, to you know, they grew, they developed. And I think that’s the thing is, is like we’re all developing towards something. That’s it.

Courtney Doctor

We are all developing towards something. And so not everybody becomes luminous, no, not everybody comes because

Jen Wilkin

we’ve also known the other version of 90. Yes, age, in

Courtney Doctor

and of itself, does not turn into automatically that we’re talking about. I do think it’s fascinating in first Peter that he uses the phrase imperishable beauty, because we are literally talking about perishable beauty. And so what is this thing that he’s talking about that is beautiful and imperishable? And I don’t think it’s a given. It’s I don’t think you necessarily get wise as you get older. I don’t think you necessarily become luminous and radiant. And so what are we doing? What what is a woman in her 20s doing? What is she doing in her 30s, her 40s, her 50s, her 60s, so that when she is Lord willing, 91 she has that the radiance of Christ that really only comes through a life lived with him. It just doesn’t happen. Yeah, Moses face didn’t shine until he was in the presence of God. And so how do we cultivate that? I think it has to be that spending time, but also pushing against intentionally, the the strong, the strong currents of the culture to hold on at all costs. And I do think you asked earlier, Melissa about discipleship and aging, and I think that that is one of the responsibilities for all of us. Anybody listening is to age in a way that shows how to pursue the better thing and our resources of time, money, energy, all these are limited. And so what are we spending them on? Are we spending them on the pursuit of the perishable beauty? Because Come what may, no matter how hard we rail against it, the beauty will perish. It will fade. And so are we spending our very limited resources on the thing

Melissa Kruger

and that, yeah, you’re really right about the stewardship. Because when I think about idolatry, you look at your time, you look, you know, at your thought life. I mean, you look at what your treasure is being spent on and what’s hard. I mean, I think we all have to, it’s just a good place to repent. I have to repent. I mean, because I can realize I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this and wondering which cream should I use, or which I mean like, or which jeans will help fold everything in.

Jen Wilkin

I got that band we all know. We all know,

Courtney Doctor

literally not your

Melissa Kruger

daughter’s your body. Yeah, bring it all. And, you know, I mean, and it’s just so tempting to say, Okay, well, it’s okay to spend more money on this or whatever. Yeah, I mean, it’s just really easy to spend our life on it. And what’s happening around us can kind of push us in that direction, too. So I think it’s a cultural pressure we’re swimming in, and that makes it harder, in some ways, to fight against it.

Jen Wilkin

I think you know, any number of spiritual disciplines could be applied to help us to combat the cultural messages about what matters most. But I think you said, you know, what would you tell to a woman in her 20s? I really think there’s not much more potent for leading a self forgetful life than a life of service, you know? And what I mean is like, and that’s where we come back to, a theology of the body, is that everything around us is telling us the primary use of the female body is decorative, but the scriptures are saying, Nope. The primary use of the female body is to be useful, to be an embodiment of something. And so, you know, sure, get a pedicure, but like, Picture those feet going to help who? Yes, you know, get a manicure, but Picture those hands in service to someone else. And so it doesn’t mean that we all you can tell like the three of us have not said I’m not going to wear makeup, I’m not going to dye my hair, but that’s what I find so often in these conversations, is people want to go, Well, what can I do? And then what you know, where’s the line? Where’s the line? I’m like, where’s the line? Mentality around this is really to miss the whole point. Instead, What’s your motive and what characterizes you, what characterizes you and how are you? How is the majority of your time being spent? Because I pray for my girls all the time, I mean, for my sons as well, but I pray for my daughters that they will be so busy about the work of the Lord that they will forget to look in the mirror. Pray it for myself, so good, you know? And, and the thing is, is we will look in the mirror. You have to look in the mirror to brush your teeth and make sure you got all the well, I had to go out, you know, uh huh,

Courtney Doctor

right, we look in the mirror.

Jen Wilkin

But there again, our culture is telling us that you should look in the mirror and not see visible change. And, you know, we know that to look at a phone is having a formational effect on us, but I think we also need to recognize that to actually look in the mirror also has a formational effect on us. And do you want to be formed toward being a person who numbers your days, a right to borrow from the NIV 1984 which is the one I memorized it in? Or do you want to be formed toward sort of a thoughtlessness around the passage of time. And those are hard questions that we don’t ask just once. We ask them over and over and over again. At a bare minimum, aging requires great courage. Great great courage, maybe more courage than anything else that some people will have had to fit those who have not had a ton of adversity, that will be the thing for them. But if you’ve ever known someone who grew through adversity, then you can know that even as you age, there is growth there. Because again, even as your body declines, you know your personhood is going to going to develop what are? That is a rich assurance. And then to know that on the other side of that, we receive bodies that never decline, I know what can someone take from us?

Courtney Doctor

Well, and yeah, and in all things right, we’re learning to take our hope out of making this life everything that it can possibly be, and recognizing that it will never be ever. We have our hope of one day all of those things, right? But in this life, like letting it’s a constant letting go of what were you going to say? Melissa, well,

Melissa Kruger

that just made me think of another thing. Because when you think, Oh, actually, do have an eternity, yeah, so numbering our days is living in light of eternity too. So these are the days that we can actually share the gospel with people we can actually, yeah, that’s why, how beautiful

Jen Wilkin

all these days in which we can store up treasure in heaven, yes? And

Melissa Kruger

there’ll come a day where that’s past, yep. So if these days have limited option. I mean, that we’re going to have all those things, we’re going to have those bodies that can do all the things we want to do, and hike all the mountains, and, yeah, you know, do all the things. But right now, we’ve been given these bodies, and this is great hope to me, because even when my body doesn’t work. For you in the ways I would like to even when I’m in that I hope when I’m in that hospital bed, or wherever the Lord may call us, because isn’t aging in some sense a call he might call me. I hope I’m praying for the person in the rest homeroom next to me, and I hope I’m paying for great, great grandchildren. We don’t believe we become useless. Yeah,

Jen Wilkin

no, no. And trillion new Bell said this to me one time, and it has stuck with me for years. She said, I think that the point of that extreme age of reaching that point is that all other distractions and temptations will be removed, and we will finally experience the freedom of just worshiping. And I thought, I have a this life. I have an impoverished view of what it means to age. And certainly death is the final enemy to be defeated. No one is diminishing that point at all. But death is not an enemy that we deny. You know, we need to know there’s something to be gained by rightly reckoning the days we have. And you know how, like, there are all of these like, little snippets out there on the internet about, like, you never know when the last time is that you fill in the blank. And they’re very poignant. I think they’re very poignant. But I thought, you know, you never know when the last day of your giving care to others and and then you become the recipient of Karen. For many of us, it’ll be a gradual trade off, but not knowing how long I have to be the one who serves means I really want to maximize those day I want to, I want to number those days rightly, as in so far as it’s possible. And I think about, you know, he ordained for us, good works that we were to do. Well, I’m gonna do them. I’m gonna do it, but I don’t think the good works we’re making sure that, you know, my hooded eyelids, we were laughing earlier about how one of those we knew we were older is when my eyeliner started to live in two places instead of one. Yes, you have good space. Yeah, we have, yeah, yeah, yeah. But I want to be I want to think, gosh, if I only have so many days of being the one who gives the care, I want to make sure I’ve done, done my

Melissa Kruger

bit well. And that’s the when you look at First Corinthians 15, when it’s talking about the resurrection. And it really happened Paul, it really sizing. And then he ends with,

Jen Wilkin

therefore, yes, this was in our sermon yesterday at church, yeah, be steadfast,

Melissa Kruger

immovable, always abounding in good works the Lord. So it’s not therefore, hold on to everything here. And it’s like, yeah, you’ve got an eternity. It’s really coming. It’s really so you can live freely, like we can chase the better things, because all the other things will come. They

Courtney Doctor

will. They will. Well, I have absolutely loved this entire episode, because even though we are the older women, I’m still looking to see what the next, if the Lord leaves me for several more decades, how to continue in this entire process. And so Jen, you know, we like to end with a question of some kind. And so I thought this one, I want to ask you, especially in light of this conversation, what would you say, since you think you’re 24 inside, what would you say to your 24 year old self that would help you become the woman that you are today.

Jen Wilkin

Well, so my stepmom said this to me years ago, and I thought it was such an interesting observation, such an important thing to focus on. She was referencing like her own aging mom and her dad at the time, and she said, you know, we become more so. And it’s both an encouragement and a warning, right? Because, especially like when you’re in your 20s, you’re developing some self awareness of where your sharp edges are. You know that are being worn off. You’re you’re you’re making mistakes, and you’re learning and all those things. And really, anytime we choose holiness over self absorption, or whatever the self fill in the blank is, we are becoming more so in the image of Christ. But the point is that you will, you will calcify, yeah, you know, as you age, you will, that is, it is just that is a lot of what aging is this, you know, we call it becoming set in your ways. And the question is, in what ways will we become set? And when my when my grandmother, my step mom’s mother, when she was 91 and had just passed away, we were, we’re actually gathering all the quilts that she had made us all the grandkids and kids brought the quilts and laid them on her hair casket and on the backs of the pews and everything. And so it’s very tender moment. And my stepmother got choked up and she said, I I just think the world of her. I just wish I could be more like her. And I thought, what would it be like to lift in 91 and have have your own child? You. I say that about you. And so, you know, Nanny was someone who became more so, so, yeah, I think that’s, that’s what I want to think about. Yeah, I

Courtney Doctor

love that I get to grow older with you all. I hope that I get to keep growing. Let’s just start with

Jen Wilkin

you achieve full hag status together, I will have

Courtney Doctor

our own little woman’s

Jen Wilkin

home exactly now, remember we were gonna be a burden to our kids, but we’ll still get together, yeah, together,

Courtney Doctor

but find your people that you wanna grow old with, and help each other do it in a way that sets your sights on something more. So hope you have enjoyed this episode of the deep dish. If you have please share it with others. Comment. We would love to hear what you’re thinking about in the entire aging process, and we hope you join us next time.