Several months ago, my 8-year-old son told me I should color my gray hair so I wouldn’t look old. To add insult to injury, I’ve also been getting advice from family members to start coloring my hair so I won’t embarrass my kids. (Isn’t that my job as a parent?)
When I entered my 40s a few years ago, I noticed that I was starting to look older. I had more gray hair—as people keep telling me—I was seeing the beginning of laugh lines, and my eyes were often puffy in the morning. There seemed to be three choices: fight the signs of aging with every intervention possible, throw in the towel and “let myself go,” or embrace learning to care for my body as it ages.
I chose the third option.
For women in midlife, there is incredible pressure to look like we’re still 25. Gray hairs appearing? Color them. Wrinkles on your face? There are creams, treatments, injections, and even surgeries to deal with those. Body shape changing? There’s a whole industry for that. It would be easy to dismiss such treatments as mere vanity, but these uncomfortable questions point to a larger conversation we need to have.
In addition to the physical changes that midlife women experience (perimenopause and menopause), for many of us, midlife leads to a reckoning with identity, expectations, existential questions, and legacy. The fact that our bodies are wasting away and we will eventually die becomes more apparent—just ask someone over 40 what happens if they sleep in the wrong position.
If we’re wise, we’ll learn to listen to our bodies and care for them well. But the more important issue is how to steward our lives from midlife until we meet the Lord.
If we’re wise, we’ll learn to listen to our bodies and care for them well. But the more important issue is how to steward our lives from midlife until we meet the Lord.
So the question becomes: How can Christian women navigate midlife well in an era that glorifies youth and is filled with new pressures, stresses, and changing roles?
There’s not a simple answer, but here are five encouragements that can help us stay grounded as we age.
1. Look to the Word and the Church
We don’t need some new technique or intervention to make it through midlife. The good news of the gospel is still our foundation. Scripture and the church are still necessary for the midlife woman trying to follow Jesus.
We don’t need some new technique or intervention to make it through midlife. The good news of the gospel is still our foundation.
While the details of midlife look different than in the past, the truth of God’s unchanging Word is still applicable in every season. God’s Word reminds us of his great love for us revealed in Jesus Christ and calls us to love him with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and love our neighbors as ourselves (Mark 12:30–31).
In addition, the church can consider practical ways to come alongside women feeling sandwiched between parenting young adults, juggling work responsibilities, and caring for aging parents. Some of these situations can become acutely taxing, and the church can help. It could be calling on older women to pray for those in the thick of difficult midlife circumstances, setting up meal trains, or connecting women in similar situations so they don’t feel alone in this season.
2. Exercise Wisdom
We need to recognize that there’s a difference between caring for our bodies as we age and obsessing over hiding the signs that we’re aging. This isn’t an easy line to draw.
Rather than creating a list of what interventions are acceptable, it’s more helpful to encourage midlife women to remember that God is with us in the midst of our struggles. We live to please him, not to measure up to unrealistic standards of youth.
As we navigate practical decisions about how to care for our aging bodies, we should consider not only what interventions to use, but why we’re using them. We can prayerfully seek the Lord’s help to glorify him in our bodies (1 Cor. 6:20). And we can look to other godly women in our communities to help us navigate the particular norms and options in our context.
3. Find Confidence in Christ’s Work
We need to be confident in Christ’s work, not our own. Preventing our bodies from showing signs of aging doesn’t make God love us more. Even if we become irrelevant in the eyes of culture, we can take heart that our lives are hidden with Christ in God (Col. 3:3).
We can encourage our sisters who struggle with expectations and disappointment to press into their identity in Christ, set their minds on things above (Col. 3:1–2), and run the race before them like one running for the prize (1 Cor. 9:24).
This isn’t a message we only need to hear once. We need to hear it regularly so it’s louder than the messages from the world.
4. Remember What Is True
It’s also important to acknowledge we’re constantly bombarded by unreal images. They’re filtered and edited, and they’re everywhere, even on our church websites and social-media accounts.
We need to be mindful that what we see isn’t always reality and stop comparing our unedited selfies to professionally edited advertisements. Most people know this in theory but seem to forget in practice.
5. Invest in Relationships
We also need a renewed emphasis on personal relationships. Virtual and long-distance relationships can be helpful, but there’s something special about connecting with fellow believers in person. Real-life friendships are the context in which we live out the gospel by loving and serving one another.
Real-life friendships are the context in which we live out the gospel by loving and serving one another.
We need friends who will lovingly point us back to our identity in Christ when we start to feel like we’re overlooked. We need people who will encourage us and pray with and for us when we’re walking through the ups and downs of midlife.
Ultimately, whether our skin is smooth or wrinkled, let us cling to the author and perfecter of our faith, trusting that he will guide us through the turbulent waters of midlife (Heb 12:1–3; Phil 1:6).
Involved in Women’s Ministry? Add This to Your Discipleship Toolkit
We need one another. Yet we don’t always know how to develop deep relationships to help us grow in the Christian life. Younger believers benefit from the guidance and wisdom of more mature saints as their faith deepens. But too often, potential mentors lack clarity and training on how to engage in discipling those they can influence.
Whether you’re longing to find a spiritual mentor or hoping to serve as a guide for someone else, we have a FREE resource to encourage and equip you. In Growing Together: Taking Mentoring Beyond Small Talk and Prayer Requests, Melissa Kruger, TGC’s vice president of discipleship programming, offers encouraging lessons to guide conversations that promote spiritual growth in both the mentee and mentor.
