THIS ONE HOUR For this one hour I can be grateful. I can thank God for life itself, for opportunities, for friends, and for a hundred other blessings and privileges to be counted, cherished and…
Sermon Illustrations
BEATITUDES OF THE AGING Blessed are those who don't deny I'm not a "them," I'm still an "I." Blessed are the ones who see I need a freedom to be me. Blessed are they who…
IT'S ALL RELATIVE When Oliver Wendell Holmes was still on the Supreme Court bench, he and Justice Brandeis took walks every afternoon. On one of these occasions Holmes, then 92, paused to gaze in frank…
SENSITIVITY Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) was a British poet and the daughter of Sir George Sitwell. She and her brothers Osbert and Sacheverell were rebels against bourgeois philistinism. Osbert told a story about her sister,…
PLAN FOR THE LONG HAUL Let me but live from year to year With forward face and unreluctant soul; Not hurrying to, nor turning from, the goal; Not mourning for the things that disappear In…
CHOICES FOR THE JOURNEY To every man there openeth A way, and ways and a way. And the high soul climbs the low, And in between, on the misty flats, The rest drift to and…
LIVING WITH ANTICIPATION I used to visit a little old English lady well into her eighth decade who used to preach to me each time I called on her. She had been through a lot,…
A SECOND LOOK An Irishman of age 41 was swept by patriotic fervor and endeavored to enlist in the army. Although the recruiting sergeant saw that this man would make a good soldier, he could…
INTERIOR AND EXTERIOR AGE In his extreme old age John Quincy Adams was slowly and feebly walking down a street in Boston. An old friend accosted him and shaking his trembling hand asked, "And how…
EASING UP TOWARDS THE END OF THE JOURNEY It is very grand to die in harness, but it is very pleasant to have the tight straps unbuckled and the heavy collar lifted from the neck…
OPPORTUNITY For age is opportunity, no less Than youth itself, though in another dress, And as the evening twilight fades away The sky is filled with stars, invisible by day. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
HE LEADETH ME In "green pastures"? Not always; sometimes He Who knoweth best, in kindness leadeth me In weary ways, where heavy shadows be. Out of the sunshine, warm and soft and bright, Out of…
AGING "Paul describes in II Corinthians 4:16 the outer nature is winding down, petering out, while the inner self is being born as a new, or renewed creature. The new I, now coming into being…
ASK THE MAN WHO'S BEEN THERE I consider that the old have gone before us along a road which we must all travel in our turn and it is good we should ask them of…
GOD BE IN MY HEAD God be in my head and in my understanding. God be in mine eyes and in my looking./God be in my mouth and in my speaking. God be in my…
DON'T QUIT When things go wrong as they sometimes will, When the road you're trudging seems all up hill, When the funds are low and the debts are high And you want to smile, but…
WHAT DO YOU SEE WHEN YOU LOOK AT ME? The following poem was written by a woman in a geriatric ward in an English hospital. It was addressed to the people who surrounded the woman…
ONE DAY AT A TIME MAKES A LIFETIME An old English proverb is "From little acorns great oak trees grow." Here's how they say it in other countries: CHINA: Enough shovels of earth, a mountain;…
EQUIPMENT NEEDED To celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary, the couple returned to their honeymoon hotel. After retiring the wife said, "Darling, do you remember how you stroked my hair?" And so he stroked her hair.…
ALL THAT IS NEEDED A boy was trying hard to think of something to buy for his girlfriend. Finally, he asked his mother for a suggestion. He said, "If you were going to be 16…
