Aging in the New Year Part II

                                                                 

Tell Your Story 

Another valuable gift EVERY SENIOR CARRIES that absolutely must be given away – especially to our families is OUR STORY.

The younger generations needs to hear where we have been and what it was like.  NOT ONLY DO THEY NEED TO HEAR IT, WE NEED TO TELL IT.

There is a wonderful healing that happens when we are invited by interested listeners to take all the time we need to share where we’ve been, what we’ve seen, known, experienced, and how we see God in all of it, too.

At the Crystal Cathedral I have nudged story-telling into a variety of classes as part of the process.  As New Hope Telephone Counselors – we put them through 7 weeks of training, 2-1/2 hours a week.  The last 1-1/2 hours of every session is devoted to taking turns listening to another’s story.  THE TRAINING ITSELF IS EXCELLENT AND INSPIRING.  But almost all cite TELLING THEIR STORY as the highlight.

2.         We include it in NEW MEMBERS

3.         We include it in LEAD ELDER TRAINING.

4.         SMALL GROUPS.

5.         FUNERAL PREPARATION

People are longing to be known.  And even though people have worked on councils, committees, teams for decades THEY DO NOT KNOW EACH OTHER’S STORIES.  They know little of their colleagues.

When we tell our stories to our children, they gain

-              >nsights into who they are (identity)

-              >What values they’ve inherited

-              >What’s important

-              >How God uses the “stuff” of life.

W    When the very old tell their stories THEY COME ALIVE AGAIN.  They gain a sense of completion.      Sometimes telling resolves old conflicts.  Endearment emerges as we see each other as persons.

My friend, Marilyn Duff, shared in her story how as a youngster one of her dear sisters died.  Marilyn tells how she consciously observed her mother’s reaction in the coming months and years.  She was going to school, taking lessons about life after tragedy-- and her mother didn’t even know it.  Fortunately, Marilyn says, even shortly after the young girl’s death her mother, every morning, would enter Marilyn’s bedroom with a cheery life-affirming burst of greeting the new day.  And Marilyn noticed and remembered.

A few years ago I was honored to have a book I wrote published.  In the book I tell about the retired minister friend I often visit who, now deceased, taught me a major lesson on SELF-CENTEREDNESS.  My 90% of  Helping is Just Showing Up book was a MAJOR thrill to me.  When I handed the old Pastor one of my very first copies he handled it a minute, glanced at it, set it aside and said “I never published anything".  It was about him

That was typical of our visits and I found it a common pattern.  I have concluded that as we grow older deliberate determination is needed to turn the spotlight off ourselves and on to others.  We must fight hard against self-centeredness.