Your Spiritual Calling is Lifelong Part 4: Later Life

God is gracious in your final spiritual call as it is during your later years you prepare for your death. This may sound glum; but it is indeed a gift when viewed in the right lens.  

Later life is time filled with losses that remind you of your own mortality. Individuals retire; lose friends, family, and spouses to death; develop physical and cognitive impairments; and experience health declines. You may also experience changes in social status because of changes in income and housing.

Whereas your earlier spiritual calling in your life is a call to action; your later life spiritual call is a call to thought and reminiscing. Individuals that have lived a life of purpose and meaning in earlier stages find a sense of acceptance, wholeness, and peace as they prepare for the dying process. For others, the life review process can cause a sense of hopelessness, shame, and a deep disappointment regarding lost opportunities. The antidote to this sense of despair lies in personal spiritual practices, forgiveness, and re-visioning your past. In addition, it is imperative to seek social support and build ongoing relationships with others.

Title: Forest Rays, Author: Neekoh.fi, Source: Flickr is licensed by CC BY 2.0

Spiritual Practices in Later Life Spiritual Calling:

Spiritual practices are essential tools during your final spiritual calling. To better understand your life experiences in context; it's helpful to see the larger view of the universe and your role in it. Scriptural study, prayer, meditation, and worship fosters an expanded view of your life. Meditation scripts such as the loving kindness meditation can often be helpful in seeing the larger spiritual context of life.

The goal of a spiritual practice is to connect to the Divine. This connection allows you to review your life in the eyes of a loving God forgives and will gladly receive you despite your past mistakes and perceived failures.

Forgiveness in Later Life Spiritual Callings:

Even if you lived a meaningful life of purpose and calling; mistakes, regrets, and opportunities are still there. Part of the life review process is preparing for your death by forgiving yourself, others, and experiencing God’s forgiveness. 

When reviewing your past mistakes, it is often easy to place blame on ourselves. Yet, when reviewing your past mistakes, it is also important to understand the context in which they occurred. When exploring the context, it is important to explore the social pressures you were experiencing. It may also be helpful to acknowledge how personal levels of maturity contributed to past mistakes. A final component is to explore what misunderstanding or lack of information informed your behavior. A deeper understanding of the context of your past mistakes can create a greater sense of grace for yourself and others.

The process of forgiveness may also involve you reaching out to others and apologizing for your mistake. An error made is thinking the other person must forgive you. It is enough for you to offer the apology and make whatever amends you may make. Sometimes restitution is just not possible, and that is okay. In situations where you do not receive forgiveness or restitution is not possible; prayer for God’s healing to all involved is your next step. Although this may not re-establish the relationship on earth; God is not limited by time, space, or matter, and your prayer for healing is sufficient.

Re-visioning Memories with Grace in Later Life Spiritual Callings:

Contextualizing your life experiences is reframing your mistakes, regrets, and missed opportunities in a manner that allows you to draw lessons and wisdom from your experience. While you cannot undo past mistakes, the knowledge and understanding you gained from those experiences can provide some meaning and purpose.

As negative memories about the past circulate repeatedly in your thoughts (a process we call rumination), take the time and identify what you learned from that situation. Explore what you would do differently in the situation based on your new insights.  It may also be helpful to review the situation and apply the lessons you learned. Note the positive outcome and impact of your lesson on all involved. Re-visioning will provide an opportunity for your mind to stop the cycle of rumination and empower you towards forgiving yourself.

Relationships in Later Life Spiritual Callings

Your need for relationships with family, friends, and social groups does not dissipate as you age. Although energy levels and health may prevent engaging in some activities; building relationships with others remains paramount even in later life. Seek ways to care for and be with others; even it is simply by phone, email, or sending a card. Join groups that are available to you at your church or community center. Volunteering is another way to give back, while also building opportunities to create friendships with others.

Seek Pastoral Care or a Trusted Counselor

Your life review may produce feelings of guilt, despair, and depression that may seem overwhelming. Unpacking your past is no small task and sometimes it is helpful to talk with a pastor or professional counselor. The counselor or pastor can help problem-solve and explore new interpretations of your past regrets and mistakes.  They may also recommend exercises to spiritual practices to help with forgiveness of yourself and others.

It is important to be honest with the counselor. You may also need to share some experiences that cause you to feel shame or embarrassment. A good counselor will listen, empathize, and develop strategies for coping in way that will support you as you process your feelings.

Spiritual Calling in Later Life Example: Thelma

Thelma was a 75-year-old who entered the nursing home following a stroke that left her unable to care for herself at home. She had been a lifelong alcoholic and estranged her family. The nursing home staff knew Thelma for her volatile anger and occasionally striking out at staff. Despite the stroke, her ability to speak remained and outside of a few short-term memory problems, she was still sharp and quick-witted.

The nursing home referred Thelma to a social worker because of her intense hostility. Initially Thelma was reluctant to share her past and regrets, but as she warmed to the social worker, she started sharing openly about her difficult past. Although it wasn’t intensive therapy, Thelma found just talking with the social worker relieved a lot of her anger and grief. 

The social worker helped Thelma forgive herself for some of her past mistakes and eventually Thelma shared she would like to write an apology letter to her son. The social worker helped Thelma explore what she would like to say to her son and prepared Thelma for the fact he might not readily establish contact with her. Thelma still thought it was worth a try; so, they wrote a letter and sent it. While her son never returned a letter to Thelma; Thelma noted sending it was healing for her.

The social worker collaborated with Thelma on Re-visioning her life with her son by exploring lessons she learned from past mistakes. During re-visioning, Thelma noted she had a hard time forgiving herself. Through guided meditation, the social worker assisted Thelma in forgiving herself for her past. In addition, the social worker provided pamphlets for Thelma on the topics of self-forgiveness and Thelma discussed her readings with the social worker during counseling sessions.

Although Thelma never reported that she could fully forgive herself; she became less angry towards staff and other residents. She seemed to apply the wisdom gained in her life review to relationships with staff and started making some new friendships with other residents.

Conclusion:

Your spiritual calling in adulthood starts with a call to service. The initial call to service becomes renewed or redefined in middle adulthood. Finally, in later adulthood, you evaluated your completion of your spiritual call. Spiritual callings are ever changing and evolving. While some are called to one spiritual call during their life, those callings transmute overtime as you grow personally and your environment changes.

The healthiest approach to a spiritual calling is to recognize you will be called to different callings in different seasons of your life. To move on with the new, you must be able to release the old. This release frees you to explore your path and purpose. Each phase of life will expose you to new aspects of your spiritual calling. Your spiritual calling is lifelong, with new opportunities at every stage of life.

By: Heath B. Walter, Ph.D.

Copyright © November 09th, 2022, Heath B. Walters DBA Spiritual Life Resources, All Rights Reserved

Reference

Erikson, E.H. (1950). Childhood & Society (2nd ed.). New York: Norton.

Zastrow, C.H. & Kirst-Ashman, K. (2010). Understanding Human Behavior and the Social Environment. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole-Cengage Learning.

Case Study Disclaimer

The case studies are purely fictional and do not reflect the experiences of any known person to the author. Any similarities between the case studies and your own life experiences are purely coincidental