A prayer awareness exercise on ageing

Father, lover of all your creation, open me to your love. Jesus, knowing the joys and sorrows of a human life, walk with me. Holy Spirit, giver of gifts, fill me, empower me, use me, even in my brokenness.

Are you aging? If you are alive, the answer to that question is going to be yes! Perhaps you sense though that your own death may not be far away, whatever your age. Psalm 71 is written by someone who knows that death is coming. Might you make some of their words your own?

In you, O Lord, I take refuge;
let me never be put to shame.
deliver me and rescue me;
incline your ear to me and save me.
Be to me a rock of refuge,
a strong fortress, to save me,
for you are my rock and my fortress.
O Lord, you are my hope,
my trust, O Lord, from my youth.
Upon you I have leaned from my birth;
it was you who took me from my mother’s womb.
Do not cast me off in the time of old age;
do not forsake me when my strength is spent.
O God, do not be far from me;
O my God, make haste to help me!
So even to old age and grey hairs,
O God, do not forsake me,
until I proclaim your might
to all the generations to come.
You who have made me see many troubles and calamities
will revive me again;
from the depths of the earth
you will bring me up again.

As I look back over my life what example of God’s steadfastness stands out? . . . . .


I remember it and I give thanks to God, the God of my life . . . . .

Father, Son, Spirit, you know me through and through; you love me as I am; you touch my life with healing; you call me to bear fruit. I give my wounded self to you, to be a channel of healing to others, to be a wounded healer, with Christ, who died, and rose, and comes again. Amen.