With The Perrys - From Dust to Dust: A Conversation with Jen Wilkin on the Theology of Aging

Episode Date: October 12, 2026

What does the Bible teach us about aging, and how might our perspective change if we viewed getting older through a theological lens rather than a cultural one? Preston and Jackie sit down with Jen Wilkin to discuss what Scripture says on the topic, explored further in Jen’s new book “Dust to Dust, Aging Wisely in an Anti-Aging World.” Jen, Jackie and Preston talk about why our culture often approaches aging with fear and contempt, how the fall has shaped our experience of our bodies, and what it looks like to embrace aging as part of the story God is telling. They also discuss caring for aging parents, embracing our own future dependence, honoring the wisdom of older generations, and the church’s responsibility to care for people throughout their entire lives. Check out Jen’s new book, “Dust to Dust: Aging Wisely in an Anti-Aging World” – https://www.amazon.com/Dust-Aging-Wisely-Anti-Aging-World/dp/B0GL4W27PX/ Connect with Jen and check out her Bible studies www.instagram.com/jenwilkin www.jenwilkin.net/books-and-studies www.trainingthechurch.com/knowingfaith “At My Mother’s Deathbed, I Discovered the Symmetry of a Long Life” (Jen Wilkin, Christianity Today) Scripture references: Genesis 1, 2 and 3 This Episode is Sponsored By: crossway.org/BeholdingChristWTP - Get a copy of Beholding Christ the book or Bible and get 30% off with a free Crossway plus account. https://gominno.com/ - Sign up online with code PERRY to get your first month FREE! Https://fieldofgreens.com - Get 20% off with promo code PERRY - Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Ikea, 50 years of Swedishness at home. Look, he's wearing little pajamas. So cute. Hi y'all, we're matching. She wanted to be like me today. I did not. I actually got dressed first. Yeah, it wasn't my intention.

And it's kind of ironic because we recorded an episode yesterday where I said when I was in seventh grade, I thought I was a blood. But I wasn't a blood. I didn't know any bloods. I had never been initiated in the bloods. I just wore red all the time. Yeah. Not only, I just realized we both got black pants on, too.

We're matching for real. We're in the same spirit. Maybe. Hi, Jen Wilkin. Hi. How are you? I can't believe you are on this couch. I know.

I'm so excited. I've been looking forward to it so much. This is going to be in time. Because here's the thing. I probably met you. You were just a little teeny baby child. I was young. I don't know.

Was I, did I have kids? You did not. When I first met you, you did not. So that means that would be more than 11, 12 years ago. Yeah. Jen, this ain't to gas you, but the Bible say let another man praise you. Jen is one of the best Bible teachers I've ever heard. That's a fact.

Do you know why? Tell me. This is why. Because, I know I say it. You can take hard, big ideas and you may. and you make them make sense. Oh, I hope so. You just make them make sense.

I remember you, it was at TGC, and you were teaching through, like, Deuteronomy, and that was like the first time I had to teach a whole chapter, and it was like mad intimidating for me. And you just made a whole chapter in Deuteronomy just be like, huh. Well, I remember that too, because I remember you were like, hey, I'd love any feedback you want to give me, and you got up there and taught, and I was like, and we're done. way. No way. And so I just, I don't know, even before we start,

Gidgen's, Bible studies, she got about a thousand of Genesis, Exodus, Deuteronomy, Numbers, Leviticus, Amos. All the fun books. Yeah, first second kings. You got revelation yet? Oh, yeah. See? Yeah. I remember the first day she came home and told me about you, because she don't be coming home and talking about a lot of people. She was like, you got to listen to this woman's teaching. No, I'm not playing. And she, played you. I was like, wow, she, yeah, like the way you teach is really, really, really great. Because I was, I was around you often while I was learning how to teach. And so I would just, I just paid a lot of attention to you.

And then we would do, we would do stuff for life way. Like, I was always asking you, like, questions and stuff like that. And so, yeah, this is just a privilege. Yeah, I feel the same way. It's been so fun to watch you just really find your voice and your footing. And, yeah, I'm proud of you. Can I say that? I know Christians aren't supposed to say that, but I am.

I'm proud of you. Thank you, Jen. Yeah. Jen has written a book with a topic that everybody actually talks about, but nobody talks about from a theological framework, which is a book about aging. Why are you, why, why? What, I guess, what facilitated that idea? Was it you aging?

Was it people in your life aging? What are you talking about it? I mean, age is the time of us? I'm just saying, like, what made you want to write? Because it's not, it's not normative. And especially in this Christian book industry, they want you to, they don't want, like, the most unique books like that. So it's just, I don't know. Well, yeah, it's a big diversion for me. You know, like, I have really tried to stay in my lane and do all Bible literacy or theological

literacy focused content. And, but, you know, one of the occupational hazards of doing ministry among women for so long is you hear this topic, you know, spoken of without a theological framework a lot of times. Like, it just increasingly, what I was hearing was, was, you know, you do you, boo. I mean, it's, you know, I don't want to judge. You know, everybody's got to figure this out on their own, as though what we do with our bodies only impacts the individual. So I think initially I started thinking about it, you know,

like a lot of people do from the sort of the more cosmetic aspects of it like. But really, when I wrote the book, that ended up being a minor note. But I think it's just the fact that those conversations happen in isolation. And I thought there's so much more going on in the, the aging conversation that is shaping our lack of interest in the theological framework. And then, of course, you know, all theology is autobiography. And I lost my mom in 2022. And I was, you know, at that point, gosh, how old was I? 54. And so, or 53. And so I was in late midlife. Well, I mean, you double 53. That's 106. So I probably was out of midlife, to be

honest. And having watched her, she had MS, multiple sclerosis, and so I encountered some of the caregiving aspects for an aging parent earlier than my peers did. And so had grappled with that for a while, and that's just surprise of, oh, are we doing this? You know, and then sitting at her side while she was in hospice care in my home and watching her perform the hard labor of dying. Just, you know, in the weeks that followed, my wheels just started turning. And I sort of combined my Bible nerdiness with what I was seeing, playing out around me, and started to ask some different questions about aging that I felt like we're being asked, certainly by my peers, but I just, I hadn't heard a sermon on it.

And the books I was seeing were about death or the afterlife, but they weren't about what do we do until then. So, yeah. You just turned 40. Have you been thinking about how you feeling? Aging. You know, it's very vulnerable for me. That's what we're looking for.

No, you know, 40 was kind of like, wow, you know, and I don't know how to feel. I was just coming back from Chicago and the guy got on the plane. It was like, I loved the, he walked past my seat. He was like, I've been listening to you since middle school. And I was like, hey, that made me sound very old. And was he a full grown human? Yes. Yes.

I'm like, bro, you got a beard. And you've been listening. And so I. have been thinking about it. I still feel young. Not the days when I throw my back out. But like most days, I still feel young. But I do think I'm starting to finally think about, that's why I'm fascinated with this conversation. I'm starting to think about things that I've never thought about before. And I think it's because I'm getting up there in age, you know, being more reflective and just, yeah, thinking about certain things. And so I'm really

fascinated about this topic because yeah I'm getting up that guy gray hairs and stuff yeah you do yeah I think I think about aging a lot and because I think about death often but I realize that I have a contempt for old age yeah and this is actually why like when I hear about people saying like there and there like even dolly part dolly just left us okay who Dolly Parton. Gosh, I'm still not okay about it. Dolly just left us. I don't know what it is.

Who is that? Dolly pardon? Jolene. You can't make me sing Jolene right here and right now. Jolene. Jolene. I think I do. I know who else left us.

Eddie Kane Jr. just left us. Okay. So anywho. I bet you don't know who Eddie Kane Jr. is. Dolly? Can I get a little on my family? Can't nobody sing like Eddie Kane Jr. Dolly was 80.

Okay. When I saw that she was 80, I'm like, man, you had to live that long. That's how I think. And this is why I think that way. I think when I think about getting older, I think about more suffering. That's what I think about.

I think about losing more people. I think about losing intellectual capacity. I think about even how people treat older people. There's like a lack of dignifying of the end. Lack of patience. Yeah, like I just, I think there's this part of me that wants to see. stay cool and suffer and like pain free. You know what I'm saying? And so I guess I don't know.

I don't know what to ask in light of that. But do you think that that's actually an undercurrent beneath a lot of people's perspective of aging is just in a contempt for it and not like a delight in it? Well, I think it's just an utter fear of it that is being, you know, we live in a culture of fear and anger. And so if I can get you to be afraid of it, aging, I can sell you a whole lot of stuff. And, you know, I think the anti-aging market was $77 billion in 2025. And so that tells you that there's a lot of fear-mongering going on about aging. And listen, I'm fine if the culture has issues with aging. I'm not. I mean, that's not good for all of us. But if the church doesn't get this right, that's where I'm like, no, we can't do

this. If Christians don't know what the Bible actually teaches about aging, and they just hear the deluge of anti-aging commentary that hits them every day, then we will not, first of all, avail ourselves of the wisdom that only can be found among someone who's lived a long time. And secondly, we will not be healthy as a church because I've used this language to talk about the contribution of women to the church in the past, that our contributions are not nice but not necessary. They are essential and indispensable.

I would say the same is true of the elderly as well. We tend to, you know, you think about how people see an elderly couple and what do they say, oh my gosh, they're so what, or adorable, right? Do you hear how we infantilize them? And I'm sorry, I'm not adorable. Not one day in my life have been adorable, and I don't think I'm going to become more adorable the older I get. Maybe I should strive for that.

But we don't even know how to think of the elderly as fully human. we see them as diminished humans. And anytime you see someone as diminished human, there's no good that's going to come from that. This episode of With the Perry's is sponsored by Crossway, publisher of the Beholding Christ series. In the Beholding Christ series, Bible teacher Nancy Guthrie invites you into God's word each day

to help you grasp the clear message of scripture and see Jesus in every Bible book. Each book of the Bible is a chance to encounter Jesus, and every day of the year is an opportunity to seek him more deeply. The 365 Bible reading introductions offer deep theological insights and context. And as you reflect and pray throughout the year, you will see how all of scripture reveals the beauty, necessity, and sufficiency of Christ. Yeah, the Bible is like no other book. You know, it's a history book. It's an ancient book. So understanding cultural context can sometimes be difficult,

but also it's a spiritual book that's spiritually discern. And so I think having, you know, content like this that helps us to further understand God's word. And, every day is a win for the Christian. You can get a copy of Beholding Christ, the book, or Bible, wherever books and Bibles are sold, or visit crossway.org slash beholding Christ WTP and get 30% off with a free Crossway Plus account. That's crossway.org slash beholding Christ WTP. That's fascinating that you say that, because I will want to hear from you of what,

how different should our aging look like from the world? Yeah. What does that practically look like for the Christian to age well? Because you talked about, I'm assuming the $77 billion, it's like old people products and like facial cream and like to look young and stuff like that. And medical aesthetics. Medical aesthetics. Yeah.

I don't know if you would say those things are kind of like sinful or kind of bad in some ways. What would you say about stuff like that's kind of the million dollar question. That's why people want to pick up the book, right? But I would argue that you can't even have that conversation until you have several conversations before that. First, we have to ask, is there a theology of aging present in the Bible? What is our theology of the body?

How does that impact the way that we think about the aging process? And the most common thing that I will hear from Christians who maybe are starting to think about it or they feel the discomfort of like, oh, I want to make choices or maybe I've already made choices that I don't want to feel any shame. is, well, you know, death is an enemy. And so surely aging should be treated the same way. Aging should be an enemy as well. We should do everything we can to fight against it.

And of course, in this conversation, no one is arguing, don't take care of your body, right? It's a question of what does it mean to take care of your body? And why do you want to take care of your body? And, you know, two people can step on a treadmill for two very different reasons. Yes. And I would argue that most of us step on the treadmill with a little bit of both. You know, it's like, I want to be fit and healthy.

And also, if I end up looking better than my peers at the same time, that would not bother me at all. And so we're always trying to fight through the motive. You know, is it that I want to glorify God, that I want to be of service to God and others? or is it that I want to be a little more decorative than the person next to me? Yeah. And it's usually, you know, we're having to wrestle to get to the right motive. The motive, yeah. How would aging have looked for Adam and Eve if they didn't listen to the devil?

Okay, so that's a really good question. That's the one we should be asking because I think in most of our minds, we think aging is something that happens post-fall. But if you go back to Genesis, one, which my drumbeat would be everybody spend more time in Genesis 1, 2 and 3, but especially 1 and 2. If you go back to Genesis 1, you find that the creation account, the six days of creation, are introduced with a time stamp, they say, and it was evening and it was morning the first

day. It was evening and morning the second day. So we see that time is passing pre-fall, right? And then we hear God say to both the living creatures and the man and the woman be fruitful and multiply. which implies that they would give birth and have children that would age into maturity. Now, I don't want to speculate much beyond that. What it would be like?

I don't know. I think it would have been great. But pre-fall, we would have seen our bodies and our souls just increasing from glory to glory. And then post-fall, we all know how it goes, right? Now we have the, when we say you're over the hill, what are we acknowledging? We know that there's an arc that does this for our bodies. But for the believer, I would argue for every human who is thoughtful about life, but for the believer who's in-dwellowed with the Holy Spirit,

we actually, even though our bodies are wasting away, we are being transformed from glory to glory. I think there is a form of wisdom that is found even among the unbelieving elderly. That's just the wisdom of having seen patterns repeat over and over again throughout the course of a long life, and you intuitively know you can anticipate what's going to happen next better than a 22-year-old pain. But believers, I mean, can you imagine with the spirit doing the work of sanctification in that?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Good question. I've heard people argue, like, did that amoeive, did they age and get old and all the things? But one thing we do see, we don't know for sure. But one thing we do see is that when sin into the human condition, they became and they hit themselves. They became kind of dissatisfied with how they looked. And I wonder if that's like even us being dissatisfied with us getting old,

it's the result of the fall. Like the perspective of your body. Yeah, the perspective of your body, because what if they got older, it wouldn't have cared if sin entered into the human condition. Yeah, maybe. But whatever that pre-sin body was going to be like, I have to assume it had to be related to our glorified state, that it wouldn't have declined.

Do you believe that? I do. I believe that too, but I was like, I don't know if I don't know. Yeah, but I think it's interesting the point that you just made about them wanting to hide themselves, because I do think that we think that aging should happen off scene. It shouldn't be something. It's not just, I would say previous generations moved toward, the belief that death should happen somewhere else,

so it should happen in a hospital or in some sort of health care facility. You know, it doesn't happen at home, although for most of human history it would have. If you died, Preston, you would be laid out on your kitchen table, washed and prepared for burial, and the funeral might even take place in your home,

which meant that Jackie, the next time she sat down for dinner, would always have the memory of your death in her everyday spaces. Now that's not the case for us. And the problem is just that we like it that way. We think that we ought not to look on death. But I would say that in the last 40 to 50 years or so,

we've seen not just that we're not willing to look at death, but we don't even want to see someone's face or body show the signs of aging. Because, yeah, that's interesting. Because the reason why I thought, I haven't thought about this since today, I just thought about it when you guys were talking. Because like you said, if somebody's trying to, you know, improve themselves as not inherently evil. But if the motive is wrong, it is a form of hiding.

That's exactly right. It's shame. It is. It's shame. You want to hide the wrinkles in your forehead not because of any other reason. And you want to, you want people to not know your 60 or 70 or whatever. And so I do think, depending on what the heart is, it is a form of hiding, which I think is kind of indicative to the fall in some way. Yeah.

Yeah. You wrote an article, I don't know if that was Christianity Today or something, but you were talking about the process of being with your mother as she transitioned. And I remember, because I, it was a, I feel like it was like a year or so ago. And I remember I was reading it and you talked about how the way your mother transitioned was like labor. Yeah. And it was like this symmetry between, oh, that's most likely also how she.

she came into the world. And that is stuck with me to the point that, like, I'd be watching TikToks about people in the hospice and just the intrigue around how the death, like how dying is like labor. Yeah. And then in your book, you talk about, you basically say that life is like a chasm.

I can't explain what a chasm is. So Jen Wilkin, the Bible teacher, can you explain what a chasm is and why life is like that? Yeah, yeah. So I did start to make this connection after my mom's death. The fact that she had this labored breathing, and anyone who's held that vigil would know that. They know, you know. She was 80 years old.

Breath got increasingly difficult. The hospice nurse said, you know, hey, you can coach her through this. And so, you know, tell her she's doing well. A good doula. Yes. And, you know, there's now death doulas. It's a whole category of, I think, somebody said, Nicole Kidman wants to be a death duel.

Can you imagine if she showed up at your bedside when you were dying? Just tall, hovering. Yeah, yeah. Anyway, yeah. So then, you know, when my mother passed, there was this giant exhale and a crashing silence. And here we'd been, you know, for two weeks plus caring for her every need. She was helpless, right? We were keeping her clean.

We were keeping her comfortable. And very, very similar to infant care. you know. And I started thinking about how in those first moments of life, you have a labor, you have coaching, and then you have this massive inhale and a piercing whale that's proof of life. And I started to wonder if there weren't other parallels that you could trace in after the pattern of chayasm, which people either love or hate these. Some people are kind of snobby about it, but I actually think they are, they're a form of ancient Near Eastern parallelism that I think are the Lord's kindness to generations of believers who would not have had access to their own copies of the Bible.

You know, you think about wanting to be able to remember something that you just heard, and these are ways to do that. So in the West, we expect there to be an end stress on what we read. So a punchline to a joke or a moral to a story. But the ancient Near Eastern mind left to place the emphasis in the middle of what they were talking about. And so a lot of times you'll be reading along and you'll hear the same thing twice. And you're like, why did we do that again? And that's usually a sign that you've hit one of these bookend moments in a chasm.

So like a really well-known one, an easy one to spot. But before we spot it, what is the verse that everybody knows from Psalm 139? Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. Yeah, praise you from Fearfully and Wonderfully Made. And so Psalm 139 starts with, Lord, you have searched me and known me. it ends with search me and know me oh god okay so we got these bookends right so then if you if we had the time we could trace in these same but different parallel structures to a main point well if you're sitting there reading some 139 of course you're going to make it you know the i am statement is

going to be about me it's not going to be about the lord even though p.s the whole p.s. the whole p.s. but if you trace in the parallels guess what the middle section is it's the next phrase it's a wonderful are your works, my soul knows it full well. That's the emphasis. And so if we're not paying attention to the structure, we can miss the critical emphasis and misinterpret. And, you know, I set the book up around living in false stories versus living in true stories. And when you're living in a false story, everything you do, the choices you make, the way you spend your money, your time, they're all going to be impacted by that. And so I think that the, the kind of, the Chiasm helps us see that there is a true story.

There's a, that the Lord and His kindness, despite the fact that a decline in death are products of the fall, the Lord and His kindness gives us sort of a roadmap to them if we have eyes to see it so that we can, in fact, age gracefully in a truly Christian sense of the word grace. Wow. Fantastic. That's so good.

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Sign up at go-mental.com with the code, Perry. Earlier you said, you was like, don't call me adorable. Trust me, no one has. I just don't want it to start when I turn 85. Yeah, like, but as we age, it is just kind of like this weird. It almost like I feel like it's a circle of life. Yeah. It's kind of like, you know, like when we're young, we don't have teeth.

When we're older, a lot of us don't have teeth. When we're young, we're walking around with the walkers trying to learn how to walk. When we're old, we're walking on that big old metal walker. Yes, that's right. You know, when we're young, we got a baby, we got a diaper. Some of us older, we got diapers, you know. Soft foods, I mean, all of it. And when we're young, we don't talk much.

A lot of people, when they old, they don't communicate well and talk much. And so it is kind of like can be tempting to treat older people like babies. but they're not. How do we dignify older people like the grown human beings they are, even if they act somewhat? I don't know if it's disrespectful to say childish. Well, they have childlike needs, but they're not children.

And that's why, you know, that's why when we talk about the parallelism, it's same but different. And this is one of the things that we can miss as adult children who step into a caregiving phase with elderly parents. is we begin to treat them like they are children instead of like they are parents who are worthy of our respect as people with an entire history of life behind them. And that actually, you know, when you think about verses in the Bible that talk about aging, not many people think to look in the Ten Commandments, but the Fifth Commandment is what we

really need to focus on in this conversation. Because if you think, you know, like we, I don't know, what your home was like growing up. I grew up with a Christian mom and she liked to quote. I wasn't going to say nothing. They may have even said, you know, she would say you better honor your father. You better honor me if you want, if you want to live a long time. My mom used to say that. My mom, my mom, a close scripture real quick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Honor your father or mother that your days will be long upon the land. And in Christian circles, and apparently even in less Christian circles, we think that is something to tell to a small child. But the

the nation of Israel gathered at the foot of Mount Sinai, do you also say, hey, don't murder, hey, don't commit adultery? Like, those commands were given primarily to grown adults. And so the Fifth Commandment is talking to people your age, about how to, in my age, about how to play our part in the community to make sure that our elderly and our aging parents are treated with honor. And I- me and Jackie, look at each other. I know. So convicted.

But is it now maybe time for me to say some of us have terrible parents? Like I'm not. No, say it. Go ahead. No, I'm just saying like, I think people hear that and they're like, well, how nice for you, Jen? Because you had this, you know, great mom and dad. And I talk about in the book, I actually had a pretty complex relationship with my mother. But, you know, we have people in our family, people very close to me, who have dishonorable

parents, like in just about every sense of the word. And so I'm sensitive to how, when I start talking about this, it can land on the ears of someone who's thinking, okay, first of all, I was kind of planning for my parents aging to be their problem to solve. But secondly, what if my parent or parents were truly terrible humans? And, you know, this is where we need it. That's hard. We need the family of God part of our theology. Because you'll be at no loss in your church community to know spiritual mothers or fathers in the faith to whom you can show honor if your relationship with your parents who are your bio-parents

is at a point where maybe a boundary is the safest thing that you can do. Yeah. Well, it comes to my mind, I was watching this clip of an interview. I don't remember her name, but she's an actress, and she was just talking about how she had a really, really bad relationship with her mother. Yeah. And how she had to take care of her mother at the end of life. And how even at the end of life she was expecting like this moment.

Closure of some time. Yeah. I love you. I'm proud of you. Right. And there was not that. But I think in my mind, I just started to reflect on how hard or difficult it would be to care for parents. did not care for you.

Yes. Like to be responsible for you now. Yeah. When it felt like you fed me, maybe, but you didn't care about my emotional health. You didn't care about, you know what I'm saying? And so I just, I don't know. I guess how does scripture help us to obey God when our parents get older? And we're still wrestling with all types of feelings about that.

Now, some of us are going to have really extreme hard stories, and I do think that there is room for a lot of grace there. I wouldn't want anyone to think that what I'm saying is, just get over it, you know, and show up for your parents. I do think we have to think ourselves forward and say, when I'm at that stage, how am I going to want to be cared for? And then ask, am I the person who's able to do that for my parent? because if at all possible, I want to or I should want to. Lord help me want to, right? But it may be that there is such a breakdown in relationship. I mean, I know these scenarios.

I've been in ministry for a long time. But what I wouldn't want is for us to focus so much on those scenarios that we overlook the overwhelming cultural messaging about caring for elderly parents, which I promise you, my mom had absorbed. my mother's generation was if you have to do anything to take care of me, I have failed. Yeah. And so what our cultural myth is is you start out dependent, you grow to independence insofar as anyone is independent in adulthood, and then you never return to dependence or you failed.

But what the shape of life, what the kiasm shows us is we should expect a return to dependence. And if we expect it, then not only can we plan for it, but we can actually help others in their return to dependence as well. That's good. Like you're not, you're not meant to be autonomous. You know, some of us enjoy a relative period of autonomy somewhere around midlife. But I think in my mind, my caregiving phase of life was going to be downward for my children. And then I was going to be an empty nester and Jeff and I were going to travel the world. And, you know, It was all just freedom from then on. Yeah.

I actually, I actually was convicted last year. Me and my dad, we don't have the best. Our relationship has been up and down. And my dad, he can take care of himself, but last year he got hurt. Yeah. And I went over, bought him some stuff. And I just remember feeling like this, this resistance because of the times in my life, but he didn't take care of me. I'm like, he can take care of me.

Now I'm over here taking care of you, helping you get out of bed and stuff like that. And I don't know. I felt like the Lord was saying, you actually are comparing you taking care of your dad. But like when you were young, he actually did take care of you. It wasn't until you got older and things got complicated where you had the most wounds. But when I was young, he was wiping my butt. He was helping me with all of the things. And I think the Lord, in the weird way, kind of showed me that, like, I'm judging my father off like four or five years.

Yeah. And I'm treating him based on this little. And I think that's probably a good way for people. Like, our lives are so complicated. And a lot of times our trauma is so loud. Yeah. That it kind of outweighs so much of life. Yes.

You know, and I think God, I think, so I guess I'm saying probably one part of healing. is probably helping God shift your perspective. For sure. And I think even if you can't look at your actual experience as the paradigm, you can say, well, what should it have been like? Right. And then how can I, as far as possible, with me, demonstrate that for end-of-life care? And so, like, you might look at your own experience of caring for your own infants, right?

Yeah. And you didn't, like, imagine if you're three-month-old in the middle of the night when you're doing the feeding and getting him changed and everything had said, I'm sorry I'm such a burden to you. Like, what would you have said? What are you talking about? There's nowhere else I'd rather be. And one of the reasons it's easy to feel that way about infant care is because there's so much potentiality.

But you're thinking about. Sometimes I didn't want to go to sleep. I'm like, you. Yeah, yeah. Also, yes. Yeah, I need you to sleep right now. That's a great point. But, you know, you're thinking there's so much, so many question marks floating around your infant

and so many days ahead and questions to be answered. and we don't have that at end of life. We don't have potentiality, which means that we are not, we're not like investing in something future. We're expressing gratitude for something past. That's good. Wow. And sometimes there's precious little gratitude, you know,

if you've had a difficult relationship. And in that case, I think it's important to remember that my kids are watching me. Like I remember being so aware, my kids knew that my mother was difficult. There was no concealing it. But there was also no concealing how I was going to react to that. And the more vulnerable she became, the harder it was for her to not be difficult. And I thought, if I screw this up, then I deserve however my children want to treat me. Because we don't know, like, how we're going to age.

you know. And so I wanted that also they didn't have some of the baggage with my mom, you know, that I did. And I wanted them to have permission to just love her without my narrative controlling their relationship with her. And I wanted, that was a way to honor her. That's good. Was by a lot of things that I didn't say, you know, a lot of, they didn't need to know. They don't need to know my whole story with her if it's going to inhibit theirs. In the world where everything is moving, you've got to eat on a go. It is real easy to eat a hamburger, some french fries, all the food that clog your arteries.

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And I think as you get older, you start to think about your overall health. And so when I found out that field of greens actually flash freezes all of their, their vegetables, so no nutrients is gone out of the vegetables, it was a win for me because I can have all of the great things that are in vegetables in one cup. And so that was just a win for me. And it tastes good. And so when I had it, it didn't taste like I was eating dirty greens that just came out of the ground.

It actually tastes good. And so, yeah, that's why I tried it. Go into your next physical competent. One scoop, once a day, done. Make Field of Greens your one smart change this year. You could check out the university study and get 20% off at fieldofgreens.com, promo code Perry. That's field of greens.com promo code Perry. You mentioned kind of the idea of like a we start dependent become so-called independent

end up dependent. And last week I was reading this book from J.I. Packer about weakness. And he was even like the trailer of the book is like he's just this old or do walking real slow up the stairs, typing on typewriter. And he was just saying how like Paul's words about being weak, he resonates with even more now as an older man. And so I guess how do we even start to, how do we embrace weakness and dependence so that even when like, because I can see me getting older and feeling some type of way that I need my kids. Like genuinely. But I can see that also being a hindrance to my sanctification. Because just because I'm 80 don't mean I still don't need to grow in godliness, right? And so how do we handle that? Okay, well, I think we all

know that suffering is a shortcut to sanctification if you have the Holy Spirit and you're asking for that. And so I think that we have these dress rehearsals for aging. So I'm actually having one. I broke my ankle eight weeks ago. So when the book on- Did the Lord heal you? Because you walk I know. Are you impressed? This is actually a compression sock. It's not the latest fashion in footwear. Yeah. I was on, we told our adult children, here's a little parenting hack for you. We said, if you invite us on your vacation, it will get better. And so they did. And we were in Austria. I was in a foreign country. That sweet. And got to have surgery on my ankle in Austria. Okay. Broke both bones. I won't mention that my son-in-law said, don't worry. It's probably just a bad sprain.

and he's dead to me now. But yeah, so when my book on aging released, I was in a wheelchair and getting around on a walker. My oldest son just adopted his fourth child. And at the adoption ceremony, I sat next to my 86-year-old grandfather in the courtroom in the space where the two wheelchairs would fit. And we held hands, and he's in a wheelchair,

and I'm in a wheelchair. And I just kept thinking, I will get better. I will get out of this wheelchair. And he's not going to. And it occurred to me that the way that we navigate early opportunities to think about our limits will absolutely either build fortitude in us or dissatisfaction and a disdain for being helpless. I was literally having to stop myself. In the book, I talk about how my mother would say, I'm so sorry, I'm interrupting your life.

You know, and I'd say, hey, you're a person to love, not a problem to solve. That was my mantra. And I am having to hold back from saying to Jeff Wilkin, I'm so sorry. I just created so much work for you. Like, our laundry is in the basement. Yeah. I couldn't go in the basement. You know, my podcast setup is on the third floor.

He had to, everything had to be moved around and accommodated. And if I can't deal with equanimity with something that is, is a temporary setback, how then... You're going to have to explain. Equanimity. What's that? If I can't be calm and patient in that kind of a temporary trial, then how am I going to face that long-haul decline of old age?

And the thing is, is like, the reason that the church needs to talk about this is because we're living longer. Yeah. So, like, there's been all this conversation about why has no one ever done? talked about menopause. Why are women having to bump into all this stuff and no one's ever done the research or whatever? Well, it's because since 1900, average life expectancy in the United States has gone from, check this out, 43 years to 80. That's double. Yeah, that's an additional 37 years of life that is included in average.

Now, life expectancy numbers are a little tricky to understand because infant and maternal death rates play so heavily into the numbers. And so like another thing we miss is that in the ancient world, the world that the Bible was written to, average life expectancy, was between 25 and 35 years of age. So Jesus wouldn't have been considered that young like that. That's right. But if you think, let me let me qualify those numbers a little bit. In the ancient world, so I gave birth to four kids. I would have expected that one would die before the age of one. Yeah. And another would die before the age of 10. So those numbers pulled everything younger. If you survived childbirth if you were a woman, run-of-the-mill diseases, warfare if you were a man. You might be able to expect to live 55, 65 years of

age. So when the Bible says that gray hair is a crown of glory, think how few people lived to get it. And the trials of aging that we are facing just didn't happen because people didn't live as long as we do. You know, menopause hasn't been researched because a lot of women never really had to deal with it for very long before they died. Yeah, I didn't know that. Wow. So, you know, we've been given, much given, much required. Here we are with all of this extra time that we've been given. Yeah. And what are we doing with it? Yeah. Yeah. I think we all know. I love the fact. I keep thinking about Methuselah. Oh, yeah. This is a side. No, it's not a question. I just love the fact. This is going to sound crazy. I

love the fact that your ankle was broke. Thank you. You and my son-in-law would be long-grieved. He's going to rejoice in your stuff. Yeah. No, because one thing that I've noticed is that the Lord often brings people through things that they're writing about. Oh, yeah.

So I'm writing and be honest. Yeah. Because when I was writing a book about evangelism, I was going through some crazy stuff. I'm writing the book right now, and I'm literally struggling with that same exact thing. Her, she's writing the book. And it's just like, God literally allows us to, like, to go through the same thing we're trying to teach people through, like in real time, so it could write in a more honest and transparent place.

I think while you were talking about, like, how the Lord, the phrase you used was tight. I don't remember it, though. But it was something like the trials and the sufferings that we have, even before we get to that point, help us. And I was just, I was thinking about when I was pregnant. Yeah. Because oftentimes, you know, I was pregnant four times. And I would tell present, I was like, is this what it feels like to be elderly?

Because I just needed so much help. My hips hurt, my knees hurt, my bladder was weak. You understand what I'm saying? My pelvic floor ain't working appropriately. My mental ability, I couldn't even think straight. You know what I'm saying? And there was just a neediness to me that I could not wait to get away from. Like it was like as soon as I had this baby.

I can't wait to be strong again. And so I think even like though, I don't know, I just resonate what you're saying as it relates to even that because then when I got diagnosed with type 1 diabetes and I needed help, I don't know, I felt like I could accept it because of my previous experience with the babies. Whereas like, no, I actually need it. So I'm not even going to like hold y'all. Like, please help me out. Yeah. Yeah. So.

Yeah. No, the disabled absolutely have a head start on this conversation. Now it's not a head start. People are like, yeah, sign me up for a disson. right? But I think it's an unexpected blessing that they don't have to face aging with the same lack of resources that many of us do. Because, I mean, if you think about it, maybe you lead a charmed life and you're able to avoid suffering all of your life. If you live to a good old age to borrow from the scriptures, you will suffer. You will have this return to vulnerability.

And, you know, people say all the time, oh, I want to be Christ-like, well, you know, do you want to suffer? Because suffering is going to teach you that. And my stepmom has always said, you know, Jennifer, as we age, we become more so. Yeah. And she had, her mother, who's the grandmother I knew the best, when Nanny died at 92, I remember my stepmother saying, she's the most wonderful person I've ever known. I just want to be more like her. And I was so, I didn't know you could say that about your parent. Nanny became more so in a very positive direction, but not everybody does, you know. And so I'm thinking all the time, what am I going to be like when I do lose some of the

self-control that I'm able to have now or the presence of mind? If I'm going to become more so, I want to become more like Christ. And that's going to require, I think, thinking about it sooner rather than later. Yeah. I have two ideas in my head, kind of do the first one. Yeah. Have you seen the documentary about the band who's trying to make sure that he doesn't die? So I listened to a podcast that he was on.

Yeah. What did you think about it, too? I think that the oldest lie, the oldest false story of all is you will not surely die. That is what I think. And I understand it was actually listening to the interview, I had a little more like compassion form of like, oh, he thinks he's doing us all a favor by making himself a science project. You know, he's like a science fair project. But that being said, you know, I guess I'm like, well, what do we win if we live longer?

Isn't it okay to have our turn and be done? Like one of the things that's interesting to me, I don't know if you've noticed this, it's obvious. in the political sphere, that we have a lot of old people who cannot sit down. They don't want to, they don't want to, they're hoarders of time, so to speak. That's what I feel about Jeff Probst. It's like, let Survivor go. Oh, listen. You understand what I'm saying?

You've been doing this. We don't, we love you, Jeff. Because he's, he's ageless and timeless. But I'm saying, Jeff, you ain't, you ain't, you ain't, you ain't, you ain't spry no more. Yeah, it's kind of like. They finally saw the puzzle. I'm like, you still saying that?

It's like Pat Sejack too. He should have left way before he did from Wheel of Fortune. It's a thing. So y'all point in that dude that don't want to die, I just thought he was crazy. I'm so serious. Because for you don't want to, like, you want to see everybody in your life? Like, are you crying when your people are? But he doesn't have a life.

That's the thing. He doesn't have family members and stuff. His whole aim is living long. Yeah. See, that's something mental. Yeah. But he also just got diagnosed. with something recently. And so it's just unavoidable. But go ahead. So I think that one of the,

you know, death is an enemy. That is true. Yeah. And an illness suffering. All of those things are things that we don't want. But like everything else, God is able to use those things for our sanctification. Like he takes the products of the fall and he turns them into something from which we can grow more luminous. Like we can be transformed inwardly. I would say, In some sense, the way that we were supposed to, had there never been the fall in the first place, like there's something he can do even with what is post-fall that is beautiful if we submit ourselves to it. That's not to say we should think it's great that we have to relinquish all of our personal freedoms, you know, the older that we get. But if we recognize that it is normal and that a lot of people never lived long enough to even have the years that we are saying are scary,

you're sad or or whatever, then you're going to walk through them certainly more grateful, I would hope. And also, with more of a sense of, like I said, much given,

much required, because we do tend to think of our latter years as just coast through to the finish line. And we don't view the contributions of, we tend in our culture

to view the elderly as increasingly obsolete. You know, like we've got, you know, phones that are four years old and drawers somewhere that we don't use anymore. Obsolescence is a top of mind arithmetic that we do in our current culture, perhaps more than ever before in human history. Things just didn't change as fast as they do now. I already need my

children's help when my phone updates. And you know what? I don't need them laughing at me. Yeah. And they're great. I mean, they read the book. They know the line. But the they're great. But I think, gosh, if I'm like this now, what will it be like in 20 years? And what if my worth is based on my currentness? And, you know, the fascinating part about this is, most people in younger generations go to TikTok or somewhere like that when they need wisdom. And the average age of influencers is 18 to 24. So we actually think that wisdom is not found among the old. We think it's found among the young.

I got a question. What is that? I'm thinking about not just as we get older, because that's a thing too, but not even just about age, but what is that in us that makes us feel like we're a burden? Or like we, because I remember when she was pregnant. And I'm like, Jackie, you're not a burden.

But I also felt shame. I'm like, I did this. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, he did. multiple times. You know what I'm saying? So like, this is my fault. I've been feeling like, God doesn't do that to us. But we do it to each other all the time. We treat people like burdens, but we also act as if we're a burden so much. What is that? Like, it's a huge Western cultural lie. There are still modern day cultures that don't, don't view life that way.

but we, you know, interdependence is not something that we value. We value independence, radical individualism, radical self-expression, you know, and what's fascinating to me is in the aging conversation so often, Christians begin to essentially say, my body, my choice, when it's something they would never have said, you know, about an earlier stage of life. it's never my body my choice. My body is always something that is helping me relationally be in service to God and to others. The forgotten act of Christ is the ascension

that he's seated at the right hand, Godfather, which means that these are the hands and these are the feet. Until such time as he returns, that's what my hands and my feet and my mouth and every other part of me are four. That's good. And so if my body is just something for me to do whatever,

if I wasn't bought with a price, right, then sure, I can do whatever I want. That's what the culture is saying. But within the family of God, we actually say, no, you know, we're not created for independence. We're created for interdependence. And when we learn to be dependent on each other, we're actually, learning to be human. Like that's what we were made for. Our needs are not post fall.

We were created to be needy before the fall. And I think, you know, the pregnancy example is a really good one because I think one of the reasons that the aging hardships

divide along gender lines, like women are concerned with how they look more. Men are more concerned with like you mean I'm not the strong, big strong guy anymore. So like at our house, Jeff, Jeff is not allowed on ladders of a certain height anymore. And then my son, Calvin, is supposed to make sure that he does not get on those ladders, supposed to get on them for him. And it's been really, really hard for Jeff. He had back surgery 10 years ago.

Can't repeat the surgery. Needs to not go on ladders above a certain height. I just can't say that enough. Well, you know, for me, it's everybody around me, their face is frozen. nothing is changing on the way they look. And it's less about my physical capabilities, but it is also about that. Well, women understand vulnerability into adulthood.

Your pregnancy is a perfect example. It's a biologically programmed moment of dependency. You didn't do anything wrong. It was just part of being pregnant. And even if you had a black belt and karate, you can't roundhouse kick somebody to the ground when you're nine months pregnant. Cannot.

But for men, they actually understand physical dominance and what it gives to them. And they enjoy a form of autonomy that women typically don't have. And so they have more to give back as the aging process happens. We actually get some dry runs. We get some dress rehearsals as part of our biology for dependence. And men forget dependence in adulthood. physical dependence, and then they have to remember it as they age into their latter years, and it's hard.

That's why, I mean, it's some ad that always playing. I don't know who this man is. He used to be a baseball player selling like testosterone pills or something, but he's like in his 50s and 60s. It's like, it's okay, Frank. It's okay, Frank. You play for the white socks. Yeah, but it's like, and they'd be tossing them peels.

You'll love it, and she'll love it too. It's like, get out. It's like, y'all always. I'm like, if she's your age, she's. He's not going to love it. It's like, y'all are always trying to sell sex to men. That's the way. You're 50 years old.

And think about, I don't want to pick on her because I want to pray for her. But like Demi Moore, you know, we've seen a lot of pictures of her lately. She's 62. She looked good. She looks something. She, we have to pay attention to what kind of anti-aging women are being sold. Her anti-ageing. package is not sexually neutral. So she's 62. She's fully postmenopausal. But the way that she's supposed to

maintain herself is as a highly sexualized creature. That's weird. And I can see that being, because I think that exists in the Kardashians. Absolutely. So it's like the enhancing of all the parts that are. Because that's your brand. Yes. And so it's like millions are at stake. And so it's like millions are at stake. as you age. Well, and I actually have a little more compassion for people who make a living off of whether they continue to look young or not. It's these average people who no one cares

whether you look 10 years younger or not, who now are being asked to part with $70,000 for a deep plain facial facelift. I don't even know how to say it. I don't either. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's all in my algorithm now because I wrote this book, but it's like women saving the money

so that on their 40th birthday or their 50th birthday, that's their gift to themselves. Or 20-year-olds getting prevented at Botox. And it's so sad to me because I'm not trying to, it's just a lot of them all start looking the same. It's like, when the lips and the cheeks. That's changed so good. Dude, it's like, you ever saw Saw Saw? Okay. The movie saw?

Don't ignore him. No. He's saying something else. He's saying something else. I'm serious. Because you're about to start. I know what you're talking about. I know what you're talking about.

We'll talk later, Preston. Okay. I think. Part two. You go right to part two. I got to part of two. What are, so I think to end it, I think I want to talk practical a little bit when it comes to the church. Yeah.

Because one area that I think about often now because of, I think about often now because of friends that I have with kids that are autistic, I didn't start, I didn't realize how much churches didn't create space for that, you know, where I was like, oh, so now I'm like thinking about it all the time. I guess what are ways that the church can not on, can prepare us for the aging process, but also care for the elderly in our midst, even like positioning them to be wise voices. Yeah. Because let me add this caveat. Like I remember when I did this conference called Glory.

And one of the events, I really felt led by the Lord to ask all of the women who were 60 and older to stand up and to pray over them and to honor them. And I got a lot of DMs about a lot of older women wanting to pour, but feeling like they didn't have space to, feeling like, well, I didn't pour into my daughters good enough. So I don't feel like. And so I guess I'm curious on like how space can be created. to honor the elderly and honor their wisdom, but also how it can prepare us to embrace the age of process. Okay, let's start with the first one. First of all, this should be top of mind important for every church.

And I know that's big words, so let me back them up. We are experiencing, the word unprecedented gets thrown around a lot. This is a truly unprecedented thing in human history. We are experiencing what's called the graying of America. So typically you would think of a population distribution as a triangle with a lot of young people at the bottom and a few people at the top. We're seeing the rectangularization of that and potentially the inverting of the triangle. By the year 2035, there will be more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 18 in the United States. Okay.

So now think about how many people don't even live geographically close to their parents who are aging, right? which means that if you're a local church, you should be preparing for in your church and in your community for there to be a full-blown end-of-life orphan care crisis on your hands. Because let's think about that. Assisted living costs upwards of $5,000 a month right now. Nursing home upwards of $10,000 a month. So we should assume that there will be not just a handful, but a lot of people who will not be able to afford for someone else to take care of their elderly parents. How is the church going to answer this?

Do we truly believe in a whole life, pro-life ethic from womb to tomb? That's going to be put to the test. So there's that issue. Do we see the nursing home as an evangelistic gold mine, so to speak? That's probably not the way to say that. That sounded weird. I got it, though. I can make you feel. Do we see discipleship as something that everyone needs for all of life? Most churches are thinking about how to build their young adult ministry or their student ministry, and I think they should. But are we thinking about ministering to people who are walking through these very real physical losses and simultaneously caring for them in that way as we honor this whole life wisdom that they have to. enrich us with.

One generation will tell the next of the wonderful works of the Lord. Not if that younger generation thinks that the wisdom they need is on TikTok with 18 to 24-year-olds. So there's a lot of teaching that needs to be done on the value of what the elderly have to give to us. And then there's stuff like the sound level. Like, I hate to sound like mamma. But you know how little kids come in and they're wearing the headphones? it's because it's physically dangerous for them to attend our worship services.

Because the typical decibel level that's set at is 91. That's the standard. And very small children and very old people suffer hearing damage if it's above 71 or 72. So what are we willing to? Are we going to hand out headphones to the senior adults? Like what's our plan? Or are we going to honor them when we make decisions about how and what we're going to sing.

So, you know, those are some things, but then there's things like, are we going to make sure that we have accessibility in the same way, you know, aging is a form of disabling over time. And so all of the same weight that we would bring to bear on a call and should bring to bear on helping people with disabilities be able to be participants in the life of the church. We should be thinking about the elderly in the same way, but they're much greater numbers in all likelihood. And then, yeah, so. When you're the person who has that wisdom, you got to get over your imposter syndrome.

Like, what do you know that you know? You have some things in your life that you know that you know. And then you got to keep putting yourself out there. And you can feel like you have a target painted on you. You know, like someone's just going to transactional use you for help whenever they have a crisis that they're in. And I think that can be on both sides of the equation. The younger person has been told, you need a mentor. But they think that a mentor is someone who you sit down.

with a list of questions and you just, you know, give me what I need. I want both people on this side of the equation and this side of the equation to realize that a true mentorship is just a friendship. Like, don't be weird. If you want to be friends with someone, go, hey, let's go get coffee. Yeah. And then if that coffee is weird, go have coffee with someone else. Or maybe give it two or three more times. But the reason that my mentor, Pat, and I are still in a relationship is because she's my friend. We can't wait to get together. She's not like, uh, Jen's on the calendar again. And, uh, and we, so we need, churches need to be thinking about how, how can friendships develop between people in this age bracket and this age

bracket. And there are many ways we can answer that question. That's good. That's excellent. Well, one thing I love, I ain't a pastor. Yeah, well, I want to understand. One thing I love to see is God raising up people to talk about things that typically it's not talked about. I love that. And you ask a whole bunch of questions like, what's going to happen if, you know, this? But it's dope to see that God is raising you up

to bring light to these things. These are things that you just don't think about. You don't think about old people ears in worship service. But it's dope to see God raising you up to talk about this. Thanks. Thanks. Thank you, June Wilkins. I'm really grateful for the conversation.

This was great. we have all stuff in the show notes uh y'all pray about this this matter because you know lot of y'all are young y'all are young y'all going to be old yeah this this matters too and so yeah bye y'all peace