The Ministry of Health and Healing

The Elderly

Older people also need the helpful influences of the family. If they no longer have their own home, the blessings and influences thus lost can best be made up in the home of fellow Christians. Encouraging them to share in the interests and occupations of the household will help them feel that they are still useful. Make them feel that their help is valued, that there is something yet for them to do in ministering to others, and it will cheer their hearts and give interest to their lives. MHH 109.1

So far as possible, those who are near the end of life’s journey should remain among friends and familiar associations. Let them worship among those whom they have known and loved. Let them be cared for by loving and tender hands. MHH 109.2

Whenever the members of a family are able to do so, they should count it a privilege to minister to their own kindred. When this cannot be, the work belongs to the church, and it should be accepted both as a privilege and as a duty. All who possess Christ’s spirit will have a tender regard for the feeble and the elderly. MHH 109.3

The presence in our homes of one of these helpless ones is a precious opportunity to cooperate with Christ in His ministry of mercy and to develop traits of character like His. There is a blessing for both old and young in associating together. The young may bring sunshine into the hearts and lives of the aged. Those whose hold on life is weakening need the benefit of contact with the hopefulness and buoyancy of youth. And the young may be helped by the wisdom and experience of the old. Above all, they need to learn the lesson of unselfish ministry. The presence of a person in need of sympathy and forbearance and self-sacrificing love would be to many a household a priceless blessing. It would sweeten and refine the home life and call forth in old and young those Christlike graces that would make them beautiful with a divine beauty and rich in heaven’s imperishable treasure. MHH 109.4