A Prayer for the Aging Body

Lord, my body is not what it was. The mirror surprises me now. The stairs are longer than they were — and yet. And yet. Moses at a hundred and twenty, his eye undimmed, his vigor unabated (Deuteronomy 34:7). Caleb at eighty-five, pointing uphill and saying, Give me this hill country (Joshua 14:12) — not a rocking chair. A mountain. Anna at eighty-four in the temple, who never left, who worshipped night and day, and was the first to tell Jerusalem her Messiah had come (Luke 2:36–38). Abraham a father at a hundred; Sarah a mother past laughter (Genesis 21:5–6). Paul writing from a cell near the end: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith (2 Timothy 4:7). Add me to that long bright line. Even to gray hairs you will carry me (Isaiah 46:4) — but you do not carry a corpse. You carry a saint still useful, still bearing fruit in old age, still green and full of sap (Psalm 92:14). Though the outer self is wasting away, the inner self is being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16). Renew me today. Give me a mountain to ask for. Give me a word to speak over my children's children that will outlive me. Give me a race to finish well. And when the day finally comes, receive me the way the harvester comes home from the field, sheaves in both arms (Psalm 126:6; Psalm 116:15). Amen.

Wear the prayer King of Kings Hooded Sweatshirt — for the King whose kingdom only gets bigger with your years.