A very disturbing report told the story of a 92-year-old woman, Mrs. Anna Mae Blessing. She shot and killed her 72-year-old son. Why? He was planning to place her in a senior care home.
Mrs. Blessing lived with her son. When she realized that he planned to “put her away,” she walked into her son’s bedroom and said, “You destroyed my life. So I’m destroying yours.” She then took a handgun from her pocket and fired two bullets into his neck and jaw, killing him. Then she turned the gun on her son’s 57-year-old lady friend. But she managed to wrestle the gun from Mrs. Blessing and contact the police. Police arrested Mrs. Blessing and charged her with 1st-degree murder and aggravated assault.
Someone has said that God uses old age to prepare us for eternity. Old age humbles us. It strips us of our strength, our health, our beauty, and our dignity. One by one it robs us of our friends and family members. Old age whittles down our independence and returns us to the status of a dependent child.
It’s therefore understandable that the aging are faced with a critical decision. They can put their faith in God and their hope in eternity. Or, they can self-destruct in a trap of bitterness and grief. Mrs. Blessing chose the latter option. Now she won’t spend her remaining days in the loving care of nurses at a senior citizens home. She’ll be imprisoned in a steel and concrete cell. Most tragically, Mrs. Blessing will now have even more reasons to be angry and bitter. She will eventually discover, too late, that she is wholly unfit for heaven and most fit for hell.
Never believe that the adversities and disappointments of life will automatically soften up a person. On the contrary, they harden most. And we must constantly fight to keep our hearts soft and tender toward others and towards God. God can help us to avoid that path of increasing anger and bitterness. God has the power to soften and melt our hearts. He also is able to turn life’s adversities into a redemptive process, a process that makes us fit for heaven. God can melt our hearts, fill them with His love, and cause life’s tragedies and disappointments to conform our inner person into the image of Jesus Christ.
If we follow the path of God’s love, death will release the glorified person within – whose glory will endure for all eternity. But for those who choose the path of anger and bitterness, death will only expose a shriveled up, hateful person within. The glorification of those who have followed the Lord will be like an exploding Fourth of July firework – whose glory never fades. But for those who choose hatred and bitterness, death will only reveal them as a dud, whose charred insides are contemptible in the sight of God.
To those who cling to the Lord, Paul the apostle wrote, “Therefore, we do not lose heart, for though the outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For out light affliction, which is but for a moment, is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:16-17).
PRAYER:
Dear Father in heaven, please renew me on the inside day by day, fill me with Your love, and cause all the adversities of this life to work out for my ultimate good and glorification. Conform me into the image of Your Son and make me fit for heaven. Amen.
Information from: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44707643
