It’s never bothered me to go grey or get a few wrinkles. But this year I started to feel myself getting older. It started with a some new aches and pains, tiredness, and then a big faith project came to an unexpected end. Bit by bit, uncertainty crept in. Does this sound familiar? This transitional stage of ageing can feel particularly challenging for women, especially if we’ve missed opportunities to serve God. So how can we counteract “the signs of ageing” as women of faith? It’s not a miracle face cream we need, but the eternal perspective of God’s word. In times like this, I access it best with the quiet rhythm of writing out scriptures by hand.
This week, the following verse came up in my Bible reading program:
…”All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord endures forever”…(1 Peter 1:24)
The Bible certainly doesn’t contain sugary reassurances about growing old! Our existence is compared to grass…the perfect metaphor for a brief life. Grass sprouts up quickly and ends in a season. This would be a painful reminder if we only had this short span of life to look forward to. But, happily, we know that God’s blunt assessment of the weakness of human life is not the end of the story. There’s deep comfort to be found in the pages of the Bible, even from the passage above.
An Eternal Perspective
This passage is even more impacting when we realise the audience of Peter’s letter. The early churches were facing persecution and death. So why quote Psalm 103:15-16, reminding them that they are like grass, soon passing away? Here Peter is not being morbid, he is confronting the symptoms of mortality. People facing suffering and death need to face it squarely, but with an eternal perspective.
God’s word is eternal. We can rely on him no matter what we are going through. To illustrate, consider the reeds shown in the picture. They are one type of grass. Each spring they burst into life, but within each clump of reeds is a colourful combination of old and new season plants. As the old plants bow and decline, the new ones offer up fresh seeds of life. Just like the reeds, we’re surrounded by reminders of what lies ahead! But we do have foundational truth that changes our fears into hopes. We just need to lean into it.
Making the Truth Concrete
In 1 Peter 1, Peter reminds the churches, “…you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.” Mortality and suffering are real. But once we know Christ we become eternal beings ourselves. And the way we become eternal is through the transmission of God’s word. Through it we gain access to Jesus, who saves us from eternal death. He is the “grass seed” that fell to the ground and died, to give life to many (John 12:24)
We may believe Jesus has granted us eternal life, but our everyday life is so absorbingly PHYSICAL. Our concrete sensory experiences demand our constant focus and attention. So it’s helpful to have a way to counteract this, by rehearsing the truth of eternal life. That’s where writing scriptures really helps. The simple act of handwriting verses brings God’s word into the present and onto the page. By slowing down and giving it a little time, even a short passage has such power to change our days, as well as our lives.
Writing Scriptures to Sense Eternity
Writing out 1 Peter 1: 22-25 gave me pause to reflect on my ageing. It also prompted me to go deeper into the eternal perspective with some scripture writing. I can’t explain just how it works, but the slow meditative writing of scripture gives moments of timelessness. I find I need that so much more as I grow older! Though I am a fragile being, I have a Saviour. He joined all of us in this human experience, so we can join him in eternity.
The image above shows my journal page about this passage, you can find out more about it on my Instagram!
I hope you will try writing out scriptures…it will keep you anchored in the enduring truth of God’s word. If you’d like to read more about Bible journaling, try this article.
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