From his book ‘For Times of Trouble’, Jeffrey R. Holland shared:
Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth. . . .
Now also when I am old and greyheaded, O God, forsake me not; until I have shewed thy strength unto this generation, and thy power to everyone that is to come. (Psalms 71:9,18)
When we are young there is a powerful temptation to think we are immortal, invincible, that the future is ours and we will always be healthy and strong. To a child there are precious few thoughts of growing old, much less moving toward true infirmity. But then the years take their toll, decades pass, and in the end finally our “strength faileth.”
Because there are lessons to be learned in our old age that simply are not possible in our youth, God intended us to know the full range of mortal experience. As Ralph Waldo Emerson once wrote, “The years teach much which the days never know.”*
Unfortunately, with old age can come genuine disability—disease, disappointment, limited use of our bodies, and sometimes limited use of our minds. Probably every “senior citizen” has had an occasion to say to the Lord, “Cast me not off in the time of old age; forsake me not when my strength faileth.”
But added to that general plea for help in such times ought to be a special plea still to show God’s strength “unto this generation.” We want not to fall short because often we have not yet fulfilled our missions. We have not yet demonstrated all the power and strength of the gospel that has made us what we are and shaped our lives into what we are trying to become. The younger generation—our children and our children’s children need to see that in us and hear it from our lips. There are lessons that the elderly have learned that can only be learned—and can only be taught—by the elderly. We can’t glean them from any other source in any other way.
So to all those who are feeling “old and grayheaded,” we say hold on, pray on, keep living, loving, and learning. And above all, keep teaching. Find every opportunity to teach the next generation all that God has done for you, all the faith—and the miracles coming from it—that you have seen in your lifetime. Perhaps your greatest sermon will be the eloquence of your long and worthy life. Celebrate even the aged season of your life and pray that it might be extended “until [you] have [shewed] heaven’s strength unto this generation, and God’s power to every one that is to come.” ~Jeffrey R. Holland, For Times of Trouble (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2012). 99-100
* Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Experience,” in Essays: Second Series (1841).
(Posts with a preamble asterisk * are for a more general audience, and not specific to teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
