Spilling the Tea on Aging

In which I imagine an afternoon chat with an internet friend

M has just turned forty. It’s been a hard couple of years, but pretty magical, too. She has five kids under the age of 12, but still feels the ache of the losses scattered over the last decade. She and her husband were pro-public school until their oldest was diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD. That sent the whole family on a new journey that opened the door to all the “home-” things— homeschooling, yes. But then homemaking, and a homebirth, and finally, a home-based business.

Life looks different at 40 than it did at 30. And she has questions. Every week, she sends me messages, straining for the encouragement that she’s not getting from family or friends. I do the best I can. I remind her that God has plans, and He is good. But what I really want to do?

To put on my kettle, send my kids outside, and wait for her knock on my door. To hug her in real time, face-to-face, and usher her in to my small house with the kitchen table scarred from years of art projects and the couch draped in an assortment of throws for the readers who feel drawn to take up residence on its cushions.

We would sit across from each other, M and I, with cups of tea between us, the kind that require both hands wrapped around the mug. She would laugh when she said it, but her eyes would tell the truth:

“I feel out of step,” she’d say. “Like I’m suddenly not the age movies are made for. Ads aren’t talking to me anymore. My body feels different. My kids are tipping into their teen years. I don’t feel old… but I don’t feel young either.”

And I would understand. Because there is a particular disorientation that comes in your forties.

You are no longer the ingénue, but you are not yet elderly.
You are standing in a doorway.

I remember that doorway.

At fifty-one, I still have children at home. But I also have four married children and 3 (and one incoming) grandchildren. I am mothering in many directions at once — still catering to someone who is intimidated by overly bold flavors at the dinner table, still answering late-night questions for teens, holding babies who call me Marmee.

If she were here, sipping tea with me, I would tell M something I wish someone had told me sooner.

You are not disappearing. You are transitioning. The world may not market to you the way it did at 25. But God is not confused about your season.

Our culture worships youth. It builds entire industries around avoiding fine lines, covering gray, shrinking waistlines, stretching relevance. It tells women that value peaks early and declines quietly.

Scripture tells a different story.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, — Titus 2:3

Reverent.

That word does not mean invisible or irrelevant. It does not mean finished. It means steady, anchored, weighty in the best sense of what it is to be burdened with purpose.

When I was younger, I thought aging well meant staying energetic and productive. Now I think it means valuing the things that God does. Being less reactive to people who can’t reorganize their passions in a way that lets them stop and listen to others. Being less impressed with noise and fanfare and more rooted in things that last.

The younger women in my life— my adult daughters, my church friends, online friends like M— do not need me to compete with them by relating horror stories of my births or frighten them by telling them how difficult it is to watch my kids fly from the nest. They need me to be honest about the hard parts, yes. But they need me to be settled in a truth that sustains my faith: Jesus truly is enough, in all seasons.

M is watching me age. My children are, as well. So is the young mom trying to decide if motherhood swallowed her identity. So is a sister a few steps behind me.

They are learning from me whether growing older is something to fear… or something to become.

Over that cup of tea growing cold in my hands, I would tell M that the shift she feels isn’t loss. It’s refinement.

Her body may change. Her hormones may fluctuate. Her energy may flag. But if she is walking with Christ, something else is happening too. She is deepening.

There is a confidence that comes when you have walked through disappointment and survived it. A miscarriage, a friendship that breaks you wide open… those places heal and somehow grow stronger. A softness that comes when you have apologized and been forgiven. A steadiness that forms when you have watched God keep His promises longer than trends last. These are mended places that become more beautiful, more meaningful, with age and experience.

I would tell M that at 51, I do not want to be 25 again.

I would not trade wisdom for hair no longer streaked with silver. I would not trade settled faith for knowing all the songs as I open my music streaming app.

God’s goal is not for us to stay young. His goal for us is to grow in wisdom and long to be more like His Son.

If older women fight every sign of aging with resentment, younger women will absorb that fear. If they speak about their changing body with contempt, their daughters will inherit that insecurity. If they treat younger women as competition, they will learn to dread becoming the very thing that they cannot escape.

But if the example is someone who ages with gratitude — if we let lines tell stories instead of issuing apologies — an atmosphere of expectation is created, instead.

If M ever sits across from me, I will tell her all of this. But until that day, I hope that the way I live and speak is a testament to all of these things for those whose cups I get to fill from my kettle.

Friend, you are modeling how to age — whether you mean to or not. Whether you are 25, or 35, or 65.

Grow older on purpose.

Be reverent.

There is someone a few steps behind you learning how to do this.

Let her see peace and glorify the Lord.

In Christ,

Heather