Honor the face of an old man

Maybe you saw this piece of news somewhere else, or perhaps you're seeing it for the first time here, but recently, a three story retirement home in Canada caught fire and burnt down. The firefighters were able to rescue some but there are still 22 unaccounted for. Unfortunately, because it is winter, the water the firefighters were using has turned to ice, some of it two feet deep, all over the building. Thusly, anyone who might have survived the fire is now stuck in the ice! The police chief doesn't hold out much hope that anyone is still alive in there but he can't declare them all dead until the bodies have been recovered. I know I am sounding pretty point blank here but I just wanted to catch you up on the situation before I veered into a more emotional writing style.

There are a couple of things to think about here: the number of lives lost and just what we are doing to the aged. First, this is a three story facility that was home to about 52 people, thirty-seven of whom were thought to be over the age of 85, many of whom were in wheelchairs or using walkers and dealing with Alzheimer's. Ten of them have already been declared dead, twenty-two are missing. That means that there are only twenty of them
left! It's pretty sad, for sure, but what's more sad than that, in my personal and slightly humble opinion, is that they were living in that institution in the first place. We've become a world that does not care about our unborn children or our elderly relatives. We'd rather relegate them to death before arrival, or death away from us; either way, we're killing them, it's that simple.

When I was in college, an elderly lady (in her 80's) whom I adored, ended up in a nursing home after she'd fallen and broken her hip. I prayed that she'd be able to get out and back to her old, very independent (she still drove) routine but laying in that residential facility, smelling death every day drained every ounce of gumption she had left. The sadness was palpable on her face at every visit and I desperately wished I could do something to light a fire of hope in her but it couldn't be done; the dismal nature of a home for those sent out to pasture is just too much even on the lightest, sweetest of spirits. We kill our grandparents, people! They don't have to die tragic and fiery or icy deaths, we kill them slowly as soon as we place them in a nursing home. We tell them, essentially, "You're too much of a burden for me, someone else is gonna have to deal with you."

Listen, I know that most of us aren't nurses and that we aren't perhaps physically or emotionally
equipped to deal with someone in the throes of Alzheimer's disease but if we are Bible-believing, Christ-following people, then it doesn't matter what we think we can or cannot handle. Listen to what we are told in Leviticus, friends, "“You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the LORD." (19:32 - ESV). Fear God, do you notice that part of it? We aren't just respecting our elders we are doing it because He is our King and He told us to and we fear Him. If you've got an elderly person in your family who is struggling or in need, reach out to him or her, don't push him/her off on your other relatives, don't stand idly by while he/she gets carted off somewhere to die. Save him/her; God will see the things you are doing and He'll provide all you need to do what He's directed; and that's the truth.