Aging is a “gift,” not a “disease”—but nevertheless a process that takes “great courage,” agreed author and Bible teacher Jen Wilkin and the two cohosts of “The Deep Dish” podcast. Wilkin joined fellow authors Courtney Doctor and Melissa Kruger on the new podcast from The Gospel Coalition to discuss why aging is a “discipleship issue” for the church.
“The way that I find that women think of aging is like it’s this disease they don’t want to contract,” said Wilkin in an episode that aired March 26. “And so there are shots that can keep you from getting the disease, there are pills that can keep you from getting the disease, and there are surgeries…that can preserve you from the disease.”
“And it’s such an odd way to think about the aging process, but I think it’s a response to [an]…idea that is embedded in our culture,” Wilkin said, “that aging is the equivalent, not of increasing in value, but of moving into obsolescence. And nobody wants to be obsolete.”
RELATED: Jen Wilkin & J.T. English: Everyone Is a Theologian. But Are You a Good One?
Jen Wilkin: ‘Aging Requires Great Courage’
Jen Wilkin is a Bible teacher from Dallas, a co-host of the “Knowing Faith” podcast, and the author of multiple Bible studies and books, including “Women of the Word: How to Study the Bible with Both Our Hearts and Our Minds.”
Courtney Doctor has her M.Div. from Covenant Theological Seminary and is director of women’s initiatives for The Gospel Coalition, as well as an author and Bible teacher. Melissa Kruger is vice president of discipleship programming at The Gospel Coalition and the author of several books and Bible studies.
The three women had a down-to-earth conversation where they discussed the challenges of aging in our modern culture, the clues they got over time that they were not as young as they used to be, and how the church can disciple believers in aging well.
The women began by describing what they most enjoy about being in their current stage of life, and they shared their ages with listeners. Doctor was 56 at the time of the podcast recording, Kruger was 50, and Wilkin was 55. Wilkin said that in her present season of life, she enjoys understanding herself better and the stability of focusing on a particular vocation.
“You can assess, like, just exactly what you don’t know a lot better than you could when you were younger,” said Wilkin. “And I think just the clarity that comes with, ‘Oh, I’m not going to be a neurosurgeon. I’m not going to be a famous baker.’ Like the number of potentialities in front of me is getting smaller and smaller.”
“And I feel just so much clarity and purposefulness around the things that are in the path in front of me,” Wilkin said. “And that feels really good.”
