Regional Synod of Canada - Reformed Church in America

Pioneer Christian Monthly

Date - Nov/92

Contributor - Eric Michael Drakeford

Title - Grow Old With Me

Topic - Aging

As you read this I shall have arrived at that magic age in life called the "Golden Years", "Senior Citizen" or whatever other designation is applied to a person who has achieved the number of sixty-five.

I never dreamed of being this age, not because I had reservations due to health but simply because I thought it old. Now I realize how young it is!

During the course of my life and ministry I have met hundreds of parishioners in this age bracket and some of them have impacted my life like the heroes of faith in Hebrews chapter 11. Let me share some of them with you:

Sam Robinson, a distant relative, who requested for his 75th birthday he be given a new bicycle and continued to enjoy life for another few years. A few months before he died he called the family together and told them he had chosen his funeral hymns but what was more he wanted to rehearse them there and then. So sitting up in bed he conducted and sang along with the family the great hymns of faith that would be sung as his coffin was brought into the Methodist Church which was so much a part of his life.

Miss Flemming was the Matron at the residential seminary I attended in Glasgow, Scotland. Regal, gracious, wise, she said to a group of us one day, "When you are 70 you are in the youth of old age, when you are 80 don't retire, take another job!" She finally quit work when she was 85, bought a small cottage and turned it into a place of prayer. For three days of every week she spent her time praying for all the students she had known serving all over the world.

Alice Daws, widowed early in life and left with two young children. The last time she saw her husband was in hospital when she went to hear the report of a specialist who was a medical advisor to the Royal Family. She, like the woman in the Gospel, had spent her last penny on seeking a cure, not for herself but for her loved one. After the verdict her husband took her hand, looked at her and said, "My dear I've prayed and you have prayed but God says 'No'; go home look after the children, trust God, He will take care of you." She told me "I kissed my husband and walked out and never saw him alive again." It was Christmas Eve!

Alice certainly trusted God, led a Women's Meeting, became a Methodist Lay Preacher, was known throughout the community for her good works. Faithful in Church, attentive to preaching leaving the premises as soon as the service was over as she didn't want the birds of the air, the devil, or anyone else to peck at the precious seed she had received but rather wanted to nurture and feed on it. One Sunday in her presence I preached the cleverest sermon I have ever preached, it was a dandy! I was so proud of it and I knew everyone, or so I thought was impressed with it. I fairly glowed! Late that night I received a message: Mrs. Daws wishes to see you in the morning. It was like a command from the Queen or and edict from the Pope - something to be obeyed. I found my way to her home, entered by the back door and was seated in her chair by the burning coal fire. A large mug of steaming tea was placed in my hand and then Alice spoke, "Mr. Drakeford if anyone had come to our Church today looking for Jesus Christ would they have found Him?" My pride was pricked, my bubble was burst and I knew my clever sermon was but wood, hay and stubble burned by the kind but searching words of this old servant of God. I hung my head in shame and I have never tried to preach a clever sermon since.

'Tich' Merry was a giant of a man, not only physically but also spiritually. He had not always been the latter, in fact he had been an awful drunk, in and out of the lock-up at the Police Station, always in trouble, neglectful of his godly wife and young son, owing money in many of the pubs and taverns in the town. One Sunday he was persuaded to attend the local Methodist Church where a girl aged 15 years was going to preach. That night 'Tich' was gloriously saved and the change was as radical as that of Saul of Tarsus. The tavern owners were so pleased at his transformation they wiped out his debts! Bible study and prayer became a passion of his life; his son became a distinguished missionary in India under the Salvation Army. He was well into his senior years when I came to know him but the warmth of love and encouragement of this man of God, who had never been to college but had been to Calvary, remains a vivid memory.

Miss Louie Miller was an old lady in my home Church in England. She had been my Mother's Sunday School Teacher. Old, wracked with arthritis, difficulty in walking but week by week, in good weather and bad, with painful steps and slow, she found her way, twice each Sunday, to Trinity Methodist Chapel. One of God's faithful saints, quiet, unobtrusive but dependable.

David Brown, cobbler, lover of Jesus, local Preacher, Sunday School Teacher, encourager, listener to me and many others. It was always a privilege to go to see this Shoe Repairer in his shop and in his home, not only because he repaired the shoes of a Bible College and Seminary students free of charge, but because conversation was edifying, positive and Christ-centred. Last year when I saw him in England he was just as warm as ever, well read, and still a good Bible Student and at the age of 86 still regular in Church attendance, discerning in preaching and rejoicing that he had been a preacher of the Good News for 62 years.

As I write I feel like the author of Hebrews who after enumerating the heros and heroines of faith said "time would fail me to tell of..." for as I reflect on some of these seniors whose lives have touched mine there comes to mind a love of others in England, Australia, Canada who have also played a part in my Christian development as a person and a pastor. Bertie Garrett, a friend of Oswald Chambers, in my last parish in England living well into his 90's used to quote to me the lines of Robert Browning from Rabbi Ben Ezra:

Grow old along with me!

The best is yet to be,

The last of life, for which the first was made:

Our times are in his hand who saith,

'A whole I planned,

Youth shows but half, trust God: see all, nor be afraid!"

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