I truly believe that God holds a special place in His heart for widows and older women. How many times in scripture do we see stories of women who felt as if life had passed them by, and God gave them renewed hope?
Though the Bible rarely provides ages of women, we can do simple based to calculate some based on the men in their lives. Others, we can go by their life events and conclude they were getting up in age.
Here are a few older women in the Bible and how God used them in their later years.
Mrs. Noah
We’re told in Genesis 5:32 that Noah was 500 when he begat his three sons and in Genesis 7:6 that he was 600-years-old when the flood came. From this, we know that even if Noah married a much younger woman, Mrs. Noah was still at least several hundred years old when God turned her life upside down.
Though life was tough in the world they lived in, having to start over completely in her old age, could not have been easy. But Mrs. Noah went willingly, trusting God’s wisdom and grace.
Sarah
Sarah is the only woman in the Bible whose old age is specifically recorded. She lived to be 127-years-old.
Sarah was in her sixties when she attracted the attention of the Egyptian pharaoh and in her late eighties when she attracted the attention of Abimelech, king of Gerar. Her beauty obviously hadn’t faded with age. She was still a vibrant woman full of life.
When Sarah passed child-bearing age, she made the assumption that God’s promise didn’t apply to her. She couldn’t have been more wrong.
God specifically used Sarah’s old age as a sign that this child was from God. When everyone said it couldn’t be done, God said watch and see.
Miriam
Miriam is the only woman in the Bible we get to view at different seasons of her life. We’re first introduced to her as a young girl watching out for her baby brother. Then we see her again in the wilderness.
Moses was 80-years-old when he led the Israelites out of Egypt. Which means Miriam was close to ninety when she led the women in song and dance at the shore of the Red Sea.
Miriam was also close to ninety when she got a big head and decided she should be in charge instead of Moses. God didn’t take too kindly to her attitude but showed her grace at the request of Moses.
Naomi
Like Miriam, Noami grew bitter in her older age. After enduring a drought, a move, and the death of her husband and sons, Naomi had given up hope. She said to call her Mara, which means “bitter.”
When she decided to move back to Bethlehem, she had no idea what God had in store for her. She never could have imagined a new life with a new daughter and son-in-law and even better, a new grandson.
Noami thought her life was over, but God was just getting started.
Elizabeth
Elizabeth was a barren woman living in a culture that considered children the greatest blessing. To not have children was considered a sign of sin in the mother or father’s life. Yet the Bible tells us, “they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless.” (Luke 1:5)
God hadn’t forgotten Elizabeth and Zechariah nor punished them. Instead, He was merely waiting for the right time to use them in a mighty way. Their son in their old age was John, the forerunner of The Christ.
Anna
Though the Bible doesn’t tell us Anna’s exact age, it does tell us she had been married for seven years, and then was a widow for eighty-four years. In other words, she was old.
Anna could have sat home and felt sorry for herself. Instead, she devoted herself to the Lord, spending all her days in the temple. Thus, when Mary and Joseph brought in baby Jesus to the temple for the purification ceremony, Anna was there, and from that point on, she told everyone she met about the Christ child.
Lois
Lois is the only woman in the Bible called out as a grandmother. Paul tells us that Lois and her daughter Eunice were responsible for passing their faith on to Timothy. He gives the two women credit for the man Timothy became. What a beautiful testament to the power of a godly grandmother.
Titus 2 Women
It’s easy to feel as we grow older that we’re no longer needed, but Paul, in Titus 2, makes it clear that we are very much needed.
“Older women, likewise, are to be reverent in their behavior, not slanderers or addicted to much wine, but teachers of good. 4In this way they can train the young women to love their husbands and children, 5to be self-controlled, pure, managers of their households, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be discredited.” (Titus 2:3-4)
If you’re an older woman wondering if God is still able to work through you, you’ll want to read The Amazing Crab Alley Revival, a Southern historical story about Victorian church ladies. Lydia Culpepper is a widow who’s gone through the motions doing everything she was supposed to do, but it’s not until a mangy coon dog and his little boy owner enter her life that she truly starts living.
Whatever our age, God is not finished with us. If you’re an older woman, I encourage you to find comfort in the stories of these Bible women and seek God’s will for your own life.
If you enjoy reading about older women with a zest for living, you’ll want to check out my debut novel, The Amazing Crab Alley Revival. It’s about an older woman seeking meaning in her life and finding it in a most unexpected place.
I’d love to hear how God is using you in your later years.
~Sharon
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