Length4h 14m
About this audiobook
You have been told a story about growing older, and it is a lie. The world insists that aging is a slow slide into irrelevance, something to be delayed, disguised, or dreaded. That story shapes how you see your own reflection, how you treat your parents, and how you imagine the decades still ahead of you.
Scripture tells a different story, one this book uncovers with striking clarity. Using the ancient image of a chiasm, the mirrored structure found throughout Hebrew poetry, Jen Witson reveals that a human life is not a straight line of decline but a symmetrical arc. The dependence of infancy echoes in the dependence of old age. The wonder of childhood returns in the settled wonder of a life well lived. What looks like loss in your later years may in fact be the very resolution your earlier years were building toward.
Drawing on Moses, Caleb, Anna, Barzillai, and the wisdom of the Psalms and Ecclesiastes, this book does not flatter old age or pretend decline is painless. It names the real losses of a changing body with honesty. But it also uncovers what our culture refuses to tell you: that wisdom, legacy, caregiving, and even weakness carry a weight of purpose our youth-obsessed world has trained you to overlook.
Imagine facing your own aging, or your parents’ aging, without fear. Imagine a faith robust enough to hold both grief and hope in the same hand. Inside these pages you will find forty-six chapters organized around the full arc of life, a thirty-day Scripture reading plan, a complete discussion guide for personal or group study, and eighteen prayers for every season from midlife to the deathbed. This is not a book that asks you to admire frailty. It is a book that shows you how to trust the design.
Whether you are bracing for midlife, caring for an aging parent, or standing at the threshold of your own later years, this book will change how you see every day that remains. Stop fighting the story the world tells you about growing old. Start living the one Scripture actually offers. Get your copy of This Book today, and begin numbering your days rightly.
Audiobook details
GenreSpirituality and Religion, Self-Help
Length4 hrs 14 mins
Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices
FormateBook with Audio
LanguageEnglish
Table of contents
1Introduction
2How to Age Wisely in an Anti-Aging Era
3Introduction: The Story We Are Told
4How to Use This Book: PART ONE: THE PATTERN OF A LIFE
5A Design With Two Halves
Show all chaptersShow less
6The Chiasm: Scripture's Symmetry
7Numbering Our Days Rightly
8The Language of Seasons
9Elders in the Story of Israel: PART TWO: THE FIRST HALF REMEMBERED
10Childhood and Dependence
11Growth, Strength, and the Illusion of Permanence
12Ambition and the Building Years
13Work as Worship in the Early Years
14Family in the First Half
15Singleness and the First Half: PART THREE: THE TURNING
16The Pivot Point of Midlife
17The Empty Nest and the Question of Purpose
18Loss as a Doorway
19Reframing the Anti-Aging Mindset: PART FOUR: THE SECOND HALF EMBRACED
20The Body in Its Later Season
21Retirement and the Myth of Total Rest
22Money, Contentment, and the Later Years
23The Local Church's Responsibility to Its Elders
24Chronic Illness and the Theology of Suffering
25Weakness and the Economy of Grace
26The Ministry of Presence
27Suffering Elders and the Witness of Endurance
28Joy as a Discipline of the Later Years
29Dependence Returns: Caregiving and Being Cared For
30Wisdom Over Ambition
31Singleness and the Second Half
32The Widow's Peculiar Calling
33Technology, Isolation, and the Aging Body
34Family Redefined in the Second Half
35Grandparents at a Distance
36When Children Prodigal: Aging Parents and Wayward Adult Children: PART FIVE: THE ARC COMPLETED
37Honoring the Elderly as Image Bearers
38Dementia and the Persistence of the Image
39Legacy and the Stewardship of Time
40The Discipline of Gratitude in Decline
41Hospitality Across Generations
42Mentorship: Passing the Baton
43Teaching Children to Honor Age
44Youth Ministry and the Missing Generation
45Death and the Hope of Resurrection
46Finishing Well: Lessons from the Deathbeds of Scripture
47Aging Well as a Couple
48Sabbath Rest as Rehearsal for Glory
49A Theology of Memory and Testimony
50The Full Chiasm: Where the Ends Meet
Prayers from the Throne RoomBrian Simmons8h 55m4.9 (256)$10 · $0.00
31 Decrees of Blessing for Your LifePatricia King2h 38m4.8 (1.4K)$10 · $0.00
Loved BabySarah Philpott4h 51m4.8 (1.4K)$10 · $0.00
The QuranAllah23h 7m4.7 (136.1K)$1 · $0.00
The Secret of the RosaryLouis de Montfort6h 1m4.7 (16K)$2 · $0.00
The Holy Qur-an: Text, Translation and CommentaryAbdullah Yusuf Ali22h 16m4.7 (133K)$1 · $0.00
All of Grace (Annotated)Charles Spurgeon5h 1m4.7 (1.3K)$1.99 · $0.00
Steps to ChristEllen G. White3h 12m4.7 (13.8K)$2 · $0.00
The Doctrine and Covenants of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Annotated)Joseph Smith13h 57m4.7 (575)$2 · $0.00
Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God & Other Sermons (Annotated)Jonathan Edwards7h 51m4.7 (1.5K)$2 · $0.00
Swayam Ki AwaazPrem Rawat8h 34m4.7 (1.1K)$26 · $0.00
Behind the BadgeAdam Davis10h 18m4.7 (2.7K)$10 · $0.00
The New Human Revolution, vol. 1Daisaku Ikeda7h 46m4.7 (669)$12 · $0.00
You Are Worth ItKyle Carpenter, Don Yaeger8h 53m4.7 (4.8K)$29 · $0.00
Praying GraceDavid A. Holland3h 2m4.7 (658)$10 · $0.00
Evidence Not SeenDarlene Deibler Rose11h 11m4.6 (11.9K)$29 · $0.00
The Christ KeyChad Bird, Chad Bird7h 33m4.7 (592)$17.40 · $0.00
He and IGabrielle Bossis10h 12m4.7 (554)$17 · $0.00
Your Body Already KnowsNidhi Pandya Bhanshali9h 7m4.7 (360)$16 · $0.00
The Complete WorksFlorence Scovel Shinn7h 59m4.6 (6.6K)$2 · $0.00
Learning to PrayJames Martin13h 24m4.5 (3.4K)$33 · $0.00
The Happiest Man on EarthEddie Jaku3h 48m4.6 (178K)$7 · $0.00
Finding MeViola Davis9h 15m4.6 (256.4K)$29 · $0.00
Spiritual AnatomyDaaji Kamlesh D. Patel9h 47m4.7 (319)$29 · $0.00
The Dangerous Truth about Today’s MarijuanaLaura Stack CSP, MBA9h 57m4.7 (385)$20 · $0.00
The Gospel according to Spiritualism (Translated)Allan Kardec14h 39m4.6 (3.9K)$5.70 · $0.00
Birdie & HarlowTaylor Wolfe7h 50m4.6 (6.5K)$26 · $0.00
CrossroadsKaleb Dahlgren7h 56m4.6 (4.9K)$26 · $0.00
Life on the BridgeKaelynn Partlow5h 40m4.6 (1.1K)$24 · $0.00
Keep Your Love OnDanny Silk9h 4m4.6 (8.1K)$10 · $0.00
The Tao of Joy Every DayDerek Lin10h 24m4.6 (762)$20 · $0.00
UndividedVicky Beeching9h 2m4.6 (1.3K)$29 · $0.00
HE CAN WHO THINKS HE CAN & OTHER BOOKS ON SUCCESSOrison Swett Marden5h 54m4.6 (1.2K)$1.99 · $0.00
Level UpRob Dial7h 42m4.6 (3.3K)$26 · $0.00
Burn the HaystackJennie Young, PhD9h 30m4.6 (543)$29 · $0.00
ACRES OF DIAMONDS: Our Every-day Opportunities (Wisdom & Empowerment Series) (Annotated)Russell Conwell2h 26m4.6 (1K)$2 · $0.00
Good InsideBecky Kennedy9h 55m4.5 (59.3K)$29 · $0.00
The Lost VoiceGreta Morgan8h 30m4.7 (285)$26 · $0.00
Stripped DownBunnie Xo8h 25m4.5 (32.9K)$26 · $0.00
UnthinkableJamie Raskin15h 8m4.5 (9.3K)$8 · $0.00
You may also like
Radical OptimismBeatrice Bruteau4h 39m4.4 (252)$19 · $0.00
My ReligionLeo Tolstoy6h 53m4.3 (867)$20
And Then We RiseCommon6h 13m4.1 (569)$24 · $0.00
The Struggle Is RealNicole Unice6h 46m4.2 (714)$20 · $0.00
Sacred Pampering PrinciplesDebrena Jackson Gandy7h 45m4.5 (290)$26 · $0.00
The Pathless PathPaul Millerd6h 14m4.2 (8K)$9.99 · $0.00
The Tantra ExperienceOSHO16h 18m4.4 (1.4K)$20 · $0.00
365 Days of KindnessBroadStreet Publishing Group LLC7h 24m4.6 (1.1K)$10 · $0.00
What We Talk About When We Talk About GodRob Bell4h 25m4.0 (9.8K)$20 · $0.00
Say HelloCarly Findlay7h 58m4.1 (1.1K)$26 · $0.00
Freeing JesusDiana Butler Bass10h 17m4.3 (2.5K)$29 · $0.00
Holy EnvyBarbara Brown Taylor7h 26m4.4 (9.4K)$24 · $0.00
The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) EverythingJames Martin14h 44m4.4 (9.2K)$33 · $0.00
A New Way of BeingDan Desmarques2h 58m5.0 (4) Only with Ultra
Henry Harrison Brown: Dollars Want Me and Other New Thought Classics (Annotated)Henry Harrison Brown8h 29m$1.99 · $0.00
Sacred MoneyGenevieve Chavez Mitchell7h 16m$20 · $0.00
Holy DisunityLayton E. Williams9h 31m4.2 (165)$20 · $0.00
The beauty of faithEmiliano Tognetti2h 55m$6.40 · $0.00
Steps Toward Inner PeacePeace Pilgrim1h 52m4.3 (65)$1 · $0.00
A 10-Day Journey to Being in Flow with GodToni Bubb1h 14m$9.80 · $0.00