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Elderly

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Mama’s K.I.S.S. #87: Month of Elderly Sundays

Posted on May 20, 2026

As you know, if you’ve been reading, for quite some time, I’ve occasionally been running little installments called “Mama’s K.I.S.S.” I know that lots of readers could give many more and far more creative ideas than I can offer, but these installments are just a few tried and true and mostly old-fashioned ideas for putting service hearts in our kids.  This is number 87 of a list of one hundred ways we train our kids to serve. K.I.S.S. is an acronym for “Kids In Service Suggestions”.

You can even have a picnic, like the Moon family’s doing with their sweet friend!

What if you tell your children this month will be “Elderly Month” as you go to worship each Sunday? You tell them that they can  invite a different elderly couple (or single) to sit with you each Sunday this month. If your kids are old enough, they can do the inviting themselves or they can choose to go sit with the chosen senior Christian. They have, each week,  in preparation, already invited this person to go to lunch with your family; in your home or at a restaurant. But whether or not this couple or person can go to lunch, you still have them sitting with you in worship.

I anticipate some saying that the elderly don’t want to move seats. If the elderly want to cling to their own seats badly enough to say “no” to children inviting, then maybe suggest to your elders some extra teaching on “stirring up one another to love and good works” (Hebrews 10:24). Alternately, perhaps there’s room for your family on the pew that the senior Christians prefer. Just try to work with them to make it happen. Be sure your family is not the fellowship inhibitor, for sure! Be flexible and sacrificial–always. Try to use this opportunity to overcome conversation challenges that your children may have with folks who are older.

Follow this procedure for a month of Sundays and your family will be changed for good. That’s a promise!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Mama’s K.I.S.S. #86: Secret Sisters/Brothers with the Elderly

Posted on April 17, 2026

As you know, if you’ve been reading, for quite some time, I’ve occasionally been running little installments called “Mama’s K.I.S.S.” I know that lots of readers could give many more and far more creative ideas than I can offer, but these installments are just a few tried and true and mostly old-fashioned ideas for putting service hearts in our kids.  This is number 86 of a list of one hundred ways we train our kids to serve. K.I.S.S. is an acronym for “Kids In Service Suggestions”.

This one’s great to do anytime of year, but summertime is prime when the kids are out of school.

Pass out a questionnaire to your elderly members. Ask them about their favorites: home items, snacks, scents, office supplies, shopping venues, colors and hobbies Make sure you ask about birthday and anniversary dates.

Then distribute the completed questionnaires to your young people. (Teens love to do this!) Young people need structure, so assign specifically here. Make sure the young partner is anonymously remembering his/her older “partner” with a card or small gift at least every two weeks. You will need to take five minutes of class time or family Bible time each week to be sure this is getting done. (It’s somewhat easier if you are doing this with your own children, of course, but the “peripheral” kids in the youth group may be the most blessed in the gifting.) Our kids live in a world of largely irresponsible youth, so you will need to help and bolster, at least at first. Sometimes each child will need to take more than one adult. Sometimes each adult will have multiple young people who are “gifting” them. Surpluses on both sides are fine; even great. This is one secret gifting program, though, that is not reciprocal. Those who receive the little gifts are exclusively the elderly.

At the end of the gifting period–perhaps after about three months, plan a meal for the kids to reveal their identities to the elderly partners. This time the gift will be signed and opened in front of the young gift-giver. This day is the most fun of all. There’s lots of encouragement to go around on both sides and, just like that, the congregation becomes less age-segregated and closer.

I’m saying today….do this one! Empathy for the age-related challenges that elderly people face is largely missing in the teens of our world.  Christianity calls our teens to be holy/set apart in the way they view elderly people, particularly their brothers and sisters in Christ.

You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the Lord (Lev.19:32).

Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble (1 Peter 5:5)

 

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Mama’s K.I.S.S. #68: Elderly Overnight

Posted on April 18, 2024

As you know, if you’ve been reading, for quite some time, I’ve occasionally been running little installments called “Mama’s K.I.S.S.” I know that lots of readers could give many more and far more creative ideas than I can offer, but these installments are just a few tried and true and mostly old-fashioned ideas for putting service hearts in our kids.  This is number 68  of a list of one hundred ways we train our kids to serve. K.I.S.S. is an acronym for “Kids In Service Suggestions”.

Not everyone will be able to do this. You may not know this person or you may have too many younger kids to make it work. But I could not skip this one. It made a profound impact on our family. 

We knew another family who was caring for an aged father in their home. He was no longer able to live on his own because of dementia and other health issues. He had preached the gospel all of his life and he loved to be around people. He loved to sing and he loved to do magic tricks for kids and teens. 

So, on a couple of occasions, when his family, who cared for him, had an out-of-town emergency or just needed a break, he came over to our house for a day or two. I cannot even tell you how impactful this was on young teens. 

They learned patience. They listened to the same jokes and stories over and over. and they learned to laugh again and again. They taught their friends this. 

They learned illustrations that were powerful for the plan of salvation and teaching the lost. They had to learn them because they were presented so many times. 

They learned to spread the joy. They had friends over who sang and sang through the night, because that’s what this wonderful man loved the most. The music in my living room was some of the most beautiful I will hear in this lifetime, and young people were learning to be comfortable around elderly people who were on a different spectrum of thought. 

They learned to respect the hoary head. They watched us and heard us speaking about the many lives who had come to know Christ as a result of this man’s work. They saw, in a practical way, the honor that should be given to those who have sacrificed for the Cause, and, really, to all the elderly among us. They understood the value in keeping the elderly from institutions and caring for them in our homes when it is possible. 

The funniest part was when it got to be midnight, and then two a.m., and the kids were still singing and he was still having so much fun. I said “Okay, now. You have to take your night meds. It’s past time. ”

He replied “Oh no. I take those when I go to bed and I am not going to bed yet.”

The kids just learned a lot. Even if the “ask” is not there, I’d still make this happen if possible for kids growing up in a self-centered world. It’s a little investment for a big return. SO many lessons learned. 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Mama’s K.I.S.S. #64–Sleepovers with Titus 2 Widows

Posted on July 12, 2023

 

As you know, if you’ve been reading, for quite some time, I’ve occasionally been running little installments called “Mama’s K.I.S.S.” I know that lots of readers could give many more and far more creative ideas than I can offer, but these installments are just a few tried and true and mostly old-fashioned ideas for putting service hearts in our kids.  This is number 64  of a list of one hundred ways we train our kids to serve. K.I.S.S. is an acronym for “Kids In Service Suggestions”.

 

Han’s kids several years later with Mrs. Dorothy

Before anyone goes all bonkers about sleep-overs with adults, let me just say that I do know the crazy world in which we live and let me preface by saying that we knew the widows very well and they were Titus two older women. But one of my teen daughter’s favorite things all through the teen years was having spend-the-night parties with great and faithful widows in the church.  She and Mrs. Jo Hicks loved to watch movies into the wee hours of the morning (think the Megan Follows “Anne of Green Gables” and the like). But Hannah also loved to host groups of older and widowed saints in our cabin. She will treasure the memory of Mrs. Dorothy, Mrs. Ruby and Mrs. Carol all bunked-out in the cabin. If you know these women, you know they experienced side-splitting laughter into the early hours. Hannah was in her element and no one in the group was within 50 years of her own age. 

I really don’t know of a better way to put Titus two into action than this one. It took some hospitality prep work. Hannah learned a lot from older saints. But I think they were blessed, too. One of them asked Hannah to be her traveling companion to Paris. That took about .00003 seconds to decide. These friendships serve to pull kids out of peer-dependence and into service. I’d recommend! 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

I Might Need to Go Home…

Posted on July 6, 2017

I think I may need to go home for a bit.  This is my 11th day straight of being here with my sweet nonagenarian. I have three more days to go and then I’m going to have my break down, cat scan and meltdown. But, even while I am having them, I will miss him. I will miss his silliness, his voracious appreciation for Waffle House and his “I-can-try-this” spirit. 

While there’s so much fun at his house, including, this time, a 4th of July visit from the Giselbachs, and a birthday party for my daughter Hannah, there are also some compromises you learn to make—compromises in cleanliness and order, schedules and nutrition. You learn to cut corners. You learn to improvise. You learn that there are some smallish things you just allow to blow away in the big wind of making life the best it can be, even in its decline.

For instance: 

  1. You compromise on the definition of a dirty towel. “This one could hang around for one more bath.”
  2. You’re up for sleeping very late in the morning if the nonagenarian is game (which is a rarity, for sure.)
  3. You give in on your eleventh visit to “the House” and order a waffle at the place that bears the name of that perforated disc of unprofitable calories. 
  4. You find  a lot of entertainment value in watching high school kids that you’ve never heard of playing basketball and you even start rooting for something called “east” in said game. 
  5. Although your husband is a clock repairman, you ask him to disable the striking function of that clock in Dad’s bedroom, just hoping it might be the culprit in the gazillion night time  trips to the bathroom. 
  6. And that dog! What is so good about that ”best dog he has ever had”?? Best is not what I use to describe that flower-digging, trash retrieving, shoe chewing, mud-slinging, child- mauling, yard littering, deer chasing mutt. But I love that dog, anyway. He brings great joy to the one who thinks he is Lassie reincarnated. 
  7. Does it really matter if birthday presents are wrapped in Christmas paper in July? I think not.
  8. Do you have to have swim diapers for babies to get in the pool? They’re nice, but nah. 
  9. And does the P-H level in the pool have to be right on? Do all the leaves have to be swept out? I’ve had a great time in a lot of creeks, so I guess, no. 
  10. Can pants with jelly, coffee, mud and ketchup on them be worn to worship? Sure, just make sure it’s all on the tie, too. You need a match. 
  11. Clean carpet may be overrated anyway.
  12. You can’t worry about money you poured into a pool that’s still cloudy or plants that got dug up, or medicine that got spilled in the dish water, or hearing aids that got microwaved in a bowl of jelly beans. Irretrievable=Forgotten.
  13. Trade-offs are important. Sometimes you trade a few blood pressure points for a great dessert and a happy camper in the ward. 
  14. Sometimes the safest walker is not the coolest one. So you go for cool and stay very close by.
  15. When you’re more tired than you’ve ever been, you go ahead and do those band stretches and can lifts right along with him. You know you need them anyway and he is 94! You know he’s got to be even more tired than you!
  16. Rejoice about the mud in the car. It means he is still going places and that’s why you bought those mud mats anyway.
  17. Don’t fret over contradictions like “Why is a ninety-four-year-old man applying something called ‘Youthair’” ? Fretting uses up brainpower.
  18. Don’t worry that you cannot explain everything to his satisfaction. Sometimes you just have to say “Well, I know it might be better sometimes to do this your way, but today, we are going to have to do it like this.” or “I know you are capable of doing this alone, but we are always going to do this together….That’s just how it is.”
  19. It’s really okay to put the towels in the machine with the dress slacks occasionally. Sometimes you just have to choose between dirty and fuzzy. I pick fuzzy.
  20. It’s okay to use Clorox wipes on everything…really. Remember, what kills a mouse in a laboratory probably won’t kill a man, and this man’s been through World War II already.
  21. Does it really matter if something way back there in the refrigerator is getting moldy? Does it really matter right now… tonight? Probably not. After all, you are here and you are getting out all the food for all the meals and you can probably recognize mold when you open it later.
  22. Does it matter if he wants you to order enough black Pilot pens on eBay to almost certainly outlive him (I mean 100 of them)? no. Someone will use them. 
  23. Does it matter if he wants to engage every stranger who has on an Alabama shirt, hat or even carries an Alabama keychain …I say, does it matter if he wants to engage him about football? No. In fact, people usually even enjoy that. 
  24. Is six eggs a day too many for one person? Well, it’s hard to criticize the diet of somebody who’s made it to 94. 
  25. Is it always just wrong to have the window open in one room while the central AC is running? You have to really think about this one, but when it makes the person who freezes in July comfortable in his little bedroom at night while still making everyone else sleep a little better in those precious hours, I say “God bless it!”  

See, here’s the thing. Contentment is comprised of compromise. If you’re unwilling to compromise the happiness and well-being of the one who provided for you when you were small and extremely dependent, you learn to live with other, smaller compromises. After all, he probably did without a few luxuries, made a few sacrifices, got up a few times at night and expended some energy even in some tired times to be sure I made it to this place of calling more of the shots. It’s all good. 

I’m surely not perfect at this care-giving thing. My sisters are both better than I. I come to the end of the rope sometimes before I’ve tied the knot. I talk in maxed-out decibels sometimes when I’m not sure the hearing aid is really at fault. I sometimes cry and I fall asleep in unusual places. I’m pretty sure my judgment is impaired at times. I can get to a point of poor listening and quick response. And today, I told the doctor, “There’s one more thing I need to tell you.” …and then I totally forgot what that thing was. I think something about Dad being forgetful. 

But I’m hoping the care we can give him is still better than the alternative care by people who do not know him. They might not be willing or able to make all the compromises. They might not even know about the place we are going where there are no necessary compromises, which is really the catalyst for all our decisions for all of life’s challenges.  I know that some good people certainly have to rely on care from outsiders.  I get that. It’s a  difficult compromise we may yet have to make. But for now, it feels right to make other, more insignificant compromises for contentment. Protecting life and nurturing it on both ends of the spectrum, from unborn to elderly, are responsibilities from God. Sometimes compromises: financial, social and practical, are required to try and make sure we do not compromise spiritually. The key is making them with joy. We are still blessed by much joy in the home of this nonagenarian.

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Sister to Sister: Mama’s K.I.S.S. #41–Cleaning for Elderly

Posted on April 5, 2016

imagesThis one’s fairly obvious, but it has multiple benefits. if you find an elderly person who needs help with housekeeping and then take your children over to clean for a couple of hours, you’re doing several important things at once:

  1. You’re better equipping your kids to clean their own houses. This is training that will save you, their mom, time in the long run because you will have housekeeping helpers.
  2. You are helping the elderly person in a big way. Old bones, eyes, hands  and muscles often aren’t able to even keep a place sanitary, much less neat and orderly.
  3. You are preparing your daughters to be the kind of wives and homemakers that will bless the lives of their husbands one day.
  4. Unlike some of our suggestions, this one will likely be a grungy job—the kind of job that makes for humility and instills the spirit of each esteeming others better than self (I Cor. 10:24).
  5. The influence of elderly Christians is almost always beneficial to children. Just the time spent in that home will have an effect on your kids, for good.
  6. If you invite other children to go clean with you and your own children, you will be impacting those young hearts for the Lord, too.

Don’t forget the March podcast is this Thursday night. Holly Smith will be joining me. Details are on the “Digging Deep in God’s Word” Facebook page. It’s a great study of the weeping prophet and the persecution that discouraged this great man of God.