Symbolic Youth

Ecclesiastes 11:10 tell us, “So then banish anxiety from your heart and cast off the troubles of your body, for youth and vigor are meaningless.” According to the author of my Bible Study, we are to just get on with living no matter the age. I have to add here that, “God’s got this!” --meaning the youth or the old-age thing. 

Symbolic Youth

 

As a youth I was complacent about half trust,

Just marking time to be grown and out on my own.

I was living life in its simple form which was a teenager’s norm.

Then life took place, and being older didn’t offer so much grace.

I looked back to my teen years and found myself in tears.

I began raging over this process of aging.

When did these gray hairs grow in?

What made this double chin?

My face has sprinkles of wrinkles.

My body is beginning to creak and groan,

And my forearms are no longer toned.

The sagging skin around my knees, I no longer wish to be bared,

 and my hearing is impaired.

My hair is thinning, and I am no longer grinning.

I am getting forgetful, and it’s making me fretful.

Oh, how I long for those teenage years with no debts in arrears.

And where, oh where, are the days of my youth,

When I had legs that were strong and could run,

When I had no cancerous skin from the sun,

When I had less hair that is white,

When I had better eye-sight,

When I had more teeth to number,

Less time needed for slumber, 

And when I had no pain from a walk down the lane?

Where, oh where, are those carefree days as, into the mirror, I gaze?

 

Mary Crisp Jameson  4/7/2026

 

“Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise His holy name...who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Psalm 103:1,5 NIV 

 

“Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, ‘I find pleasure in them’ - before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark, and the clouds return after the rain; when the keepers of the house tremble, and the strong men stoop...” Ecclesiastes 12: 1-3a NIV

Keep Me Young

    As adults, what's missing in our lives?  Could it be childlike trust as shown by the little girl who asked her mother for a kitten and was told, "No! Not unless God sends you one."  So the child immediately went outside, got on her knees, and prayed, "Lord, please send me a kitten." When the child opened her eyes, a kitten came sailing through the air and landed at her feet.  Her simple, trusting prayer had been answered.  It didn't matter that the neighbor across the way had just tied a rope to a tree limb  and then to the hitch of his truck in an attempt to get a stranded kitten out of his tree. The rope broke, the tree limb popped back in place, and the kitten went sailing across the sky. 
     Sometimes trust, laughter, and just getting rid of the stored up garbage of disappointments and resentments along life's highway of life will bring blessings, joy, and a youthful heart. 

            

 

 KEEP ME YOUNG

Keep me young, Lord, keep me young,

Like little children

With laughter dancing off their tongue,

While chasing friends across the glen.

Keep me laughing, full of joy

Like a playful, grade school boy;

Like the children and the young,

Dreaming dreams

Through the seasons that have sprung,

Waking, flowing as the streams.

Let my love flow easily through my days,

Awed by heaven’s rainbow rays.  

Don’t let me age, Lord, don’t let me age.

Give me childlike faith and trust,

Hope through the turning of a page, 

A life with treasures free of rust.

Make me childlike through the day,

Loving, sharing in my play.

Help me rid my heartfelt pain.
Keep me trusting as a child,
Dancing, singing through drizzling rain;

Open, growing, meek and mild.

Keep me smiling in this place,
Joyful in my homeland space.
Keep me young, Lord, keep me young.

                                                         Mary Crisp Jameson