Latest / Pastor John Piper's answers / Loving Aging Parents Well

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Loving Aging Parents Well · Pastor John Piper's answers

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  Speaker 1: Well. Every month, millions of people from around the world
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  Speaker 1: of ministry with you, and because of you, it really
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  Speaker 1: is precious. And today we talk to the children of
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  Speaker 1: aging parents. How do we honor aging parents when that
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  Speaker 1: labor feels overwhelming and oftentimes thankless. Today Pastor John shares
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  Speaker 1: key insights from scripture and likely some stories from his
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  Speaker 1: own life on how to balance responsibility and love and
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  Speaker 1: how to find help from the wider church family as
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  Speaker 1: we care for parents who are growing old and maybe
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  Speaker 1: not growing old gracefully. Pastor John, we get there through
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  Speaker 1: a hard email from a listener named Jan Hello, Pastor John.
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  Speaker 1: I'm forty one years old, married for fifteen years. For
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  Speaker 1: most of my adult life and marriage, my mother has
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  Speaker 1: lived with me and I have cared for her as
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  Speaker 1: she's aged. There were seasons where she helped, but she's
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  Speaker 1: now in a place of entitlement, no longer physically or
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  Speaker 1: financially able or willing to help. All throughout my life
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  Speaker 1: I have endured physical, verbal, mental and emotional abuse from her,
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  Speaker 1: and now, in her seventies, she is even more emotionally
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  Speaker 1: and mentally abusive than ever before. I have reached a
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  Speaker 1: point where I feel I can no longer care for her,
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  Speaker 1: and my younger children and husband are emotionally and mentally
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  Speaker 1: exhausted by all of this too. However, I fear that
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  Speaker 1: if I remove her from her home, her situation could worsen.
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  Speaker 1: She is also a believer. What does the Bible say
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  Speaker 1: about caring for or living with an abusive elderly parent,
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  Speaker 1: especially when trying to balance honoring them with protecting my
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  Speaker 1: families well being?
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  Speaker 2: How many thousands and thousands of Christians are facing the
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  Speaker 2: question of how to honor and care for their aging parents.
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  Speaker 2: In some cases, those parents have been financially blessed so
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  Speaker 2: that they have made all the provisions necessary for their
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  Speaker 2: own care. For many others that's not been financially feasible
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  Speaker 2: and will face very difficult decisions which involve their children.
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  Speaker 2: Others are completely alone and have no family at all.
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  Speaker 2: So this is a question that is of enormous importance
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  Speaker 2: for thousands of believers. Just a few years ago, Noel
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  Speaker 2: and I faced these questions for her mother, who lived
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  Speaker 2: to be over one hundred. Noel has eight brothers and sisters,
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  Speaker 2: so the primary burden did not fall on any one
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  Speaker 2: of us, and we lived so far away, it wasn't
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  Speaker 2: mainly on us, though you're always involved. Then, twenty years
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  Speaker 2: ago we were in a position of having to make
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  Speaker 2: choices about my father in this regard, as his dementia
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  Speaker 2: made it impossible for him to live alone. And thirty
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  Speaker 2: years before that, back in the late nineteen seventies, because
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  Speaker 2: of my mother's untimely death, we faced the question of
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  Speaker 2: how to care for her mother, my grandmother. So Noel
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  Speaker 2: and I have walked through these questions three times, and
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  Speaker 2: I don't claim to have found the perfect solution. It
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  Speaker 2: isn't just the straightforward biblical command say of if he's
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  Speaker 2: in six to two, honor your father and mother, which
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  Speaker 2: I think stands to this day no matter what the age.
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  Speaker 2: It's also the commands of one Timothy five that a
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  Speaker 2: family should take care of their own widows rather than
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  Speaker 2: putting that burden on the church. And it's also, and
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  Speaker 2: I think this is the most important thing, the many
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  Speaker 2: biblical commands and principles, that we should love our neighbor
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  Speaker 2: as we love ourselves. How do we want to be treated?
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  Speaker 2: And I'm thinking, if your neighbor is your neighbor, how
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  Speaker 2: much more is your mom your neighbor? How do we
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  Speaker 2: want to be treated in our old age? That's the
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  Speaker 2: question we ask when we're dealing with our own parents,
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  Speaker 2: and not return evil for evil, to do good not
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  Speaker 2: only to the good, but also to those who mistreat us,
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  Speaker 2: and so on. All kinds of biblical commands that are
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  Speaker 2: relevant in general, and then especially for our family, the
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  Speaker 2: commands to love the way we have been loved by
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  Speaker 2: Christ are applicable, and even more so, I say more
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  Speaker 2: so because of Galatians six', ten especially those are of
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  Speaker 2: the household of, faith and if the household of faith
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  Speaker 2: your own household, applicable they're. Applical these commands to love
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  Speaker 2: the Way christ loved are applicable to our, family and
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  Speaker 2: they can sometimes be the most difficult people to, love
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  Speaker 2: as she's pointing, out before there was any social security
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  Speaker 2: program or government provisions for the, destitute it made a
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  Speaker 2: lot more. Sense think when someone twenty seven, said, behold
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  Speaker 2: children are a heritage from The. Lord blessed is the
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  Speaker 2: man whose quiver is full of. Them in other, words
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  Speaker 2: children Were god's first idea of social security for. Parents
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  Speaker 2: that's the way it, worked not the only. Idea is
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  Speaker 2: not the only idea got ed for how to care
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  Speaker 2: for each. Other we know that From One timothy, five
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  Speaker 2: where the church steps in to take care of widows
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  Speaker 2: who are called real widows because they've got nobody in
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  Speaker 2: their families who can step in and take care of.
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  Speaker 2: Them we shouldn't have the idea that a singular nuclear
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  Speaker 2: family should be caring for parents or, grandparents as if
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  Speaker 2: that's the. IDEAL i don't think it's ever been the,
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  Speaker 2: ideal because there have always been a wider network than
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  Speaker 2: the nuclear. FAMILY i don't Think god ever intended for
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  Speaker 2: just one man one woman to be alone with all
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  Speaker 2: the consequences of their aging. Parents their are siblings and
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  Speaker 2: aunts and uncles and. Friends there are churches that can
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  Speaker 2: make life livable for everyone if we team. Up it's
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  Speaker 2: proverbial in many cultures that it takes a village to
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  Speaker 2: raise a. Child so think of the challenges of homeschooling
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  Speaker 2: without the help of a co op to help you
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  Speaker 2: with advanced. Mathematics, well it also takes a village to
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  Speaker 2: care for a person entering his second childhood in his
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  Speaker 2: eighties and. Nineties children at the, beginning children at the.
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  Speaker 2: End caring for the, young caring for the old has
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  Speaker 2: always been a community, project not falling to just one
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  Speaker 2: family with no help from. Anybody one of the reasons
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  Speaker 2: for that is the hundreds of variable circumstances in which
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  Speaker 2: a family may find itself, goodness varying health, issues varying financial,
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  Speaker 2: issues varying conflict, issues varying social and cultural, issues and
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  Speaker 2: on and. On the circumstances of one family are so
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  Speaker 2: varied you can hardly say one simple. Solution so many
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  Speaker 2: things may make the care of a parent or grandparent
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  Speaker 2: more or less difficult or even. Impossible we all need
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  Speaker 2: help of many, kinds and Thank god for The church
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  Speaker 2: when it is functioning the way it should to help
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  Speaker 2: families in this. REGARD a couple of examples maybe might
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  Speaker 2: help from our, situation not at all claiming. Perfection my
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  Speaker 2: father became a widower for the second time when he was,
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  Speaker 2: eighty and my sister AND, i that's all there. Was
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  Speaker 2: just the two of us saw to it that he
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  Speaker 2: got set up to live by, himself which he wanted to,
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  Speaker 2: do but when he could no longer manage his, medications
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  Speaker 2: he needed daily care of some. Kind So noel AND
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  Speaker 2: i asked him if he wanted to come From South
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  Speaker 2: carolina To minnesota to live with, us and he thanked
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  Speaker 2: us and said. No he laughed and, Said Duke gold up,
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  Speaker 2: there but he didn't want to leave his familiar, surroundings
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  Speaker 2: his few. Friends it was his preference to go into
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  Speaker 2: a long term care facility and from there to. Heaven
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  Speaker 2: that's what he. DID i never felt complete peace about,
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  Speaker 2: that but it seemed to be the best all things,
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  Speaker 2: considered especially with his. Desires so my sister was very
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  Speaker 2: faithful to care for him as she was closer down.
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  Speaker 2: There when my mother died at age fifty, SIX i
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  Speaker 2: was twenty. Eight her, mother in her, eighties moved into independent.
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  Speaker 2: Living she had lived with our family and my family growing,
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  Speaker 2: up and now she's on her own for the very
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  Speaker 2: first time in her, life being by. Herself she found
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  Speaker 2: it extremely, disappointing extremely, stressful and so bless her. Heart
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  Speaker 2: my wife AND i asked her if she would come
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  Speaker 2: live with us From South carolina To, minnesota and she said.
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  Speaker 2: Yes so we brought her and she lived with us
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  Speaker 2: and our two small sons at the time for two.
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  Speaker 2: Years this became increasingly relationally difficult because some of her,
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  Speaker 2: attitudes her Non christian skepticism about everything, spiritual toward our,
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  Speaker 2: kids toward family prayer and. Devotions we came to see
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  Speaker 2: this as pretty harmful to our children's. Faith she had
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  Speaker 2: three other grandchildren besides, me SO i put out the
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  Speaker 2: word and asked if someone else would be willing to
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  Speaker 2: share this care for the next, season and her granddaughter
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  Speaker 2: In pennsylvania was willing to do, that and so we
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  Speaker 2: moved her To. Pennsylvania she flourished in the living situation,
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  Speaker 2: there played the piano for the first time in twenty,
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  Speaker 2: years and was very, happy it, seemed and theirs where
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  Speaker 2: she passed. AWAY i think perhaps the most crucial consideration
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  Speaker 2: is to remember that we are to act in love
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  Speaker 2: as we were loved By, jesus and that there are
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  Speaker 2: often competing claims upon our. Love this is what makes things,
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  Speaker 2: complicated right spouses to, love children to, love neighbors to,
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  Speaker 2: love churches to, love unreached people groups in missions to,
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  Speaker 2: love and what seems loving to one group doesn't always
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  Speaker 2: seem loving to the. Other and therefore we must pray
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  Speaker 2: and immerse ourselves In god's, word and consult with wise
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  Speaker 2: and experienced, people and seek to act in such a
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  Speaker 2: way that does the greatest good to the greatest, number
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  Speaker 2: as far as we can, tell and for the glory Of.
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  Speaker 1: CHRIST a lot of hard won wisdom here from the
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  Speaker 1: pages Of scripture and from the pages of your life
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  Speaker 1: story as. Well thank, You Pastor john for sharing all of.
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  Speaker 1: This this is one of those episodes that raises the
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  Speaker 1: question over money and savings and retirement. Too we just
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: looked at that how much money DO i need to?
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: Retire that was just IN abja episode twenty ninety not long,
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: ago which can be found At Askpastor john dot com
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: how much money DO i need to? RETIRE apga twenty
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: ninety Askpastor john dot com next, time when someone accuses
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  Speaker 1: you of, sin what do you? Do what do you
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  Speaker 1: do when that accusation is? True what do you do
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: when the accusation isn't? True do you accuse, back fight?
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: Back and is it possible to receive criticism fair criticism
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  Speaker 1: or on fair criticism with? Grace that's the question up next. Time,
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  Speaker 1: again thanks for considering a one time gift or a
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• 13:40
  Speaker 1: You i'll see you On monday