Golden years...                                                                                                  ♪ Climb every mountain-utube ♪

Beauty of Gracious Old Age
Beauty
Beautiful are the youth
Whose rich emotions flash and burn,
Whose lithe bodies filled with energy and grace
Sway in their happy dance of life;
And beautiful likewise are the mature
Who have learned compassion and patience,
charity and wisdom,

Most beautiful and most rare
is a gracious old age which has drawn from life
the skill to take its varied strands:
The harsh advance of age, the pang of grief,
The passing of dear friends, the loss of strength, and with fresh insight
Weave them into a rich and gracious pattern 
All its own.

This is the greatest skill of all,
To take the bitter with the sweet
and make it beautiful,
To take the whole of life in all its moods,
Its strengths and weaknesses,
And of the whole make
one great and celestial harmony.
Robert Terry Weston
What a celebration of life - the process of
aging, and saging 

~ I Will Carry You ~
  
Do not feel hurt my dearest one
Nor yet feel set aside, 
Your heart has grown so tender
With only love tucked deep inside.

You're blessed with this unharried time
To sort through all you'll need,
To prepare for all that's coming,
You'll know just what to heed.

 You may have lost some hearing now
But you heed the Saviour's voice,
You hear His softest murmur
Long ago you made that choice.

Your legs may not be so agile
But you know quite where to go,
Your heart tugs eagerly for heaven
Your faith so clearly shows.

 Your hands may seem too weak for work
Cradled gently in your lap,
You gave so much, we love you so 
Your loving gifts are all unwrapped.

Your eyesight may be blurry now
You don't see the glitter shine,
But God has given you His rosy glasses
To only see sublime.

The taste of food may drift away,
With a pill for every ill,
But now you long for Living Bread
In Him, you find your fill.

Your heart may have a strange off beat
Or pump too fast or slow, 
But it skips up a pace
About the Jesus that you know.

Now crowned with gentle grey of years
God says He will sustain,
The God who brought you all this far
Grants comfort in your pain.

He carries you in limitations
For nothing makes you die,
He'll restore your youth again and
Give you wings to fly

God said "You are a friend of Mine" 
To Abraham in his prime,
 There is the reward from God, 
For loving Him  a whole life-time

© Derry's Heart Poems

Look up to the Sonshine,
feel the warmth of spring
life and love and joy
wondrous life to bring

♪ Secret Garden - Grace -utube♪
♪ Secret Garden-Hymn to Hope-utube.♪

I will always remember that God sees me as beautiful, 
and the older I get, the more beautiful
in His eyes will I be -
because God looks upon the heart. 
Journal/personal devotions/Beauty of old age - Rosemary Gwaltney  

Dianne Dengel

As a child I would have gingernut biscuits 
and cups of tea at my Gran’s house.
 It was one of the many things 
that I only did with Gran 
that made me feel very grown up. 
For a little while my Gran 
had an old caravan in her backyard. 
Sometimes we would take our tea and biscuits out there, we would talk about going to the beach together
 and all the fun we would have. 
I seldom went to the beach as a child 
and my Gran was quite elderly when she became the centre of my universe, 
so this was only ever a dream, 
something we spoke about often 
and made stories around, 
and that I still think about today. 
When we had finished our snack 
we would sit on the lawn and make daisy chains. 
Once I even tried to teach Gran how to ride my bike, 
only once, she sure didn’t like it! 
But I remember laughing a lot!
Did anyone else have a cassette and book titled
“Just Grandma and Me”
 The story was about a child going to the beach with his Gran and  the song went something like this -
‘When it’s time to go,
To Grandma’s house,
I can hardly wait,
Cos with Grandma I can be myself,
And you know that feels real great,
Just Grandma and me,
I can be what I want to be,
I have ice cream and she has tea,
Just grandma and me,
Mum says Grandma spoils me,
But Grandma disagrees,
She says that she just loves me,
And she likes my company.’
wholefoodsimply.com/quick-and-easy-ginger-cookies
I could go on, I think I can remember most of it and I still love it. I was incredibly fortunate to grow up with my Grandparents living so close by, it was, without questions one of the best things a kid could hope for!

Grandparents are a family's greatest treasure, the founders of a loving legacy, 
The greatest storytellers, the keepers of traditions that linger on in cherished 
memory. Grandparents are the family's strong foundation. Their very special love 
sets them apart. Through happiness and sorrow, through their special love and 
caring, grandparents keep a family close at heart. 
~ author unknown
♥♥♥

It is possible to live as to make old age very beautiful. 
In going my rounds in the crowded city
I came one day to a door 
where my ears were greeted with
a great chorus of bird-songs. 
There were birds everywhere—in parlour, 
in dining-room, in bedchamber, 
in hall—and the whole house was filled
with their joyful music. 
So may old age be. So it is for those
who have lived aright. It is full of music. 
Every memory is a little snatch of song. 
The sweet bird-notes of heavenly peace sing everywhere, 
and the last days of life are its happiest days--

“Rich in experience that angels might covet,
Rich in a faith that has grown with the years.”

The important practical question is, 
How can we so live that our old age, when it comes, 
shall be beautiful and happy? 
It will not do to adjourn this question
until the evening shadows.
 It will be too late then to consider it. 
Consciously or unconsciously, 
we are every day helping to settle the question 
whether our old age shall be sweet and peaceful.
It is worth our while, to think how
to make sure of a happy old age.
It is the running stream that keeps pure and sweet. 
Happiness comes out of living for the good of others.
Sweet always are memories of loving sacrifices made. 
Their incense, like heavenly perfume, 
comes floating up from the fields of toil
and fills old age with holy fragrance. 
When one has lived to bless others, 
one has many grateful, loving friends whose affection proves a wondrous source of joy when the days of feebleness come. 
Bread cast upon the waters is found again
after many days. If we would walk
in the warmth of friendship’s beams
in the late evening-time, we seek to make to ourselves
loyal and faithful friends
in the busy hours that come before.
 This we can do by a ministry of kindness. 
This was what our Lord meant by this verse-
 “Make to yourselves friends...., that when you fail, 
they may receive you into everlasting habitations.”

Every one carries in himself the sources of his own happiness. Circumstances have really very little
to do with our inner experiences. 
It matters little in the determination of one’s degree
of enjoyment, whether he live in a cottage or a palace.
 It is self, after all, that in largest measure
gives the color to our skies and tone to the music we hear. 
A happy heart sees rainbows and brilliance everywhere, 
even in darkest clouds, and hears sweet strains of song amid the loudest wailings of the storm; 
The fountains rise in the heart itself. 
The old man, like the snail, carries his house on his back. 
He may change neighbors or homes or scenes or companions, but he must live joyfully with himself.

 Nothing brings such pure peace and quiet joy
at the close- as a well-lived past. 
We are every day laying up the food
on which we must feed in the closing years. 
We are hanging up pictures about the walls of our hearts
that we shall have to look at when we sit in the shadows. 
How important that we live pure and holy lives

Summing all up in one word, only Christ
can make any life, young or old,
truly beautiful or truly happy. 
Only He can cure the heart’s restless fever and give quietness and calmness. Only He can purify that sinful fountain within us, and make us holy.  
To have a peaceful and blessed ending to life,
 we must live it with Christ. 
Such a life grows brighter even to its close. 
Its last days are the sunniest and the sweetest. 
The more earth’s joys fail, the nearer and the more satisfying do the comforts become. 
The nests over which the wing of God droops, 
which in the bright summer days of prosperous strength
lay hidden among the leaves, stand out uncovered
in the days of feebleness when winter
has stripped the branches bare. 
And for such a life death has no terrors. 
The tokens of its approach are but 
“the land-birds lighting on the shrouds,  
telling the weary mariner that he is nearing the haven.” 
The end is but the touching of the weather-beaten keel
on the shore of glory.
Challies/articles/beautiful-old-age 

The-beauty-of-old-age-Photographs

♪ Secret Garden Evensong♪
♪ Secret Garden - Serenade to Spring ♪ 

Old-age is a beautiful and satisfying place to be. 
At the very least, it indicates you are a beloved survivor
and may have lived a life many wished they could have. 
Old-age is golden.
 How many summers and winters
autumns and springs have you celebrated? 
How many smiles and laughs have you witnessed or heard? 
How many chuckles and smirks. 
How many acts of love and kindness have you shared? 
How many times do you suppose you have made others happy? 

Oh heavens, the hugs and the kisses 
and the hope and whispers and the cascading laughter 
that touched the heart of others. And the lives you have given
 and those you have helped to shape. 
And so, don’t despair over the aging process. Hug yourself.
 Accept and celebrate who you are. Rejoice!
Sabella Ogbobode Abidde

Cattrall said
“I think a forehead without any lines doesn’t tell me they’ve lived a life.”
 ♪ Secret Garden relaxations-utube. ♪

Grandmother, with love
Greatest Grandpa
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