Our ninety-six year old father-in-law has been in the hospital and now is in a convalescent hospital. In fact, he is in the same convalescent hospital as our eightythree year old mother, which has made visiting them that much easier. Our children have also frequently visited them, often bringing our grandchildren to see their great-grandparents. There is such a contrast between a one year old and those in the eighties and nineties. For one, life is just beginning, and for the other it is nearly over.

Most of us fall somewhere between these two extremes and we can certainly learn lessons from our observance of the very young and the very old. A youngster is born into this world having nothing and knowing nothing. It is completely helpless and must depend upon others for its survival. The very old are in a somewhat similar situation. Many of them have nothing and some of them know very little, nor are they able to use effectively what they do know. In this same home there is a retired medical doctor who now just sits in a chair all day long as if in a stupor. All that medical knowledge stored up in that brain is now of no useful purpose.

We look at the young child and we are amazed at all this child must absorb in the next twenty or so years. Learning to walk and talk, to read and write, learning math and physics, acquiring skill in playing a musical instrument, developing championship form in sports, all this is accomplished in some 20 years. Then we visit a home where the great and near great are settled in rows of wheelchairs, dozing with their chins on their chests, just waiting to be wheeled back to their rooms for the night. All their knowledge, all their skills, and all their experiences are of no useful purpose in their present state.

Money, the love of which Paul says is the root of all evil, is of little use to those in these homes. Some in these homes have a great deal of money, but they get no better care than the one next to them who is on welfare. Of course, the very, very rich can have private nursing care around the clock, but was this the reason for their driving ambition to accumulate a fortune? To have a nurse sit by their wheelchair while they doze?

Surely our life must have more purpose than just to accumulate a lot of money to spend on nursing care. Mrs. Wrigley spent her last years on the top floor of her mansion surrounded by doctors and nurses, and never even knew they were there as she was in a coma.

We cannot help growing old and the only alternative is to die, but we need to re-evaluate our priorities to make sure that the things that take up our time now will have a value when Christ comes. All the rest, no matter how much fun it may be or how rich it may make us, will be like the chaff of the summer threshing floor in the day of Christ’s coming.

Let us make sure that our young ones are taught the true values of life and to seek first the kingdom of God. All the things the Gentiles seek for will be supplied by God if we will put Him first in our lives; that’s a promise from Jesus Christ. As we observe the rich and famous of this world surrounded by their trophies and memorabilia, dozing in their wheelchairs, we realize that the things of this life at their very best are still only vanity and vexation of spirit.

How thankful we are to be in possession of the true riches and to have hope beyond this time of trouble. With Paul we say, ”For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.”