Ignoring The Elderly
Leviticus 19:32 "You shall rise up before the grayheaded, and honor the aged, and you shall revere our God; I am the LORD."
It seems that many people in our world are ignoring
a great treasure. A treasure that could provide great benefits if we just paid
attention. As we go through the various stages of life we see this play out
in many ways.
The great treasure that we so often take for granted is our elderly folk. Some
of them are treated with great respect, yet often they are mis-treated in so
many ways. I heard of a situation at a busy restaurant where two young people
who were waiting to be seated sat down and played on their cell phones. Meanwhile
an elderly couple came in and were told to wait also. The young people did not
offer their seats to them, but ignored them, even though the lady was using
a walker.
As we grow and mature, hearing such things really disappoints us. It is sad
our society fails to respect our elderly. They are the ones who brought us to
where we are now. All of our blessings are here because of what they went through.
There seems to be a common thread that once a person gets old and can no longer
be productive in society, they are not useful and are really in the way.
Some of us appreciate the elderly because we are so close to being there ourselves.
We are hoping that people will respect us for our knowledge and our concern
for others. We know that the world could learn a lot from us, and we certainly
feel that if we were put in charge a lot of common sense would return to our
governments and businesses. We have so much to offer that goes mostly ignored.
I worked in a business where the older ones usually had the answers to problems
and could remedy any situation and give guidance to the younger set. As I came
closer to retirement, my views were not respected, even when the bosses agreed
they were the right and best course of action. The younger ones wanted to do
it their way and did not take any concern for how others would take it or if
it would even be profitable. I also noticed that once the old guys were gone;
they were forgotten and their sage advice was ignored. That is one reason so
many companies are losing ground in the marketplace these days.
Our elderly have so much to offer us because of their experience. I guess our
nature leads us to do things our own way. Sure they made mistakes and they learned
from those mistakes, and the younger will make mistakes, and hopefully will
learn from those mistakes. The worst mistake is to refuse sage advice.
The Bible tells us we are to respect the elderly. In fact, God commands us to
respect them. Our world seems to want to be rid of them as soon as possible.
Even some recent laws require the elderly to receive end of life options. Rather
than suffer the pain and problems of old age, and the expense of medical procedures;
it would be best if they choose to end their life than to put the burden upon
society. After all, it is their society that they built, and they owe it to
society to not be a burden upon it. <sarcasm, if you have not already figured
it out>.
Please respect the elderly. You can learn a lot from them. Sure some of them
may seem grumpy all the time, but most likely they are in pain and trying to
hide it. May the Lord bless you with the same respect someday with the respect
you show to the elderly today.
By Carey Scott.
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