A life well lived comes with amazing stories along the way. We spoke with Chester Mahan who is 103 years old and up until just last year--was involved in ministry. He told us some of his best memories and advice to live a long life.
“When I was a kid, I was afraid of thunder and lightning, and I would throw a fit,” Mahan said. “I had a terrible temper. But of course, I was caught red handed. And my mom said, when you feel, feel like this in life say three little words, Jesus, help me and look up and try to smile.
“And I walked around and just agreed. And I walked around the churches and building saying to myself, oh that dumb sissy. Jesus helps me. And I walked across the bar, and I got about halfway across and, suddenly realize I felt different. I was kind of halfway doing what she said, and I stopped and said, I feel different. This stuff works. And that was the beginning of my relationship with God.”
Chester Mahan has spent a lifetime in service to a higher power. From a teenager all the way to the age of 102 he’s been involved in ministry. He was the oldest serving United Methodist Pastor in Indiana. Mahan recalls telling his sister what he wanted to do.
“I said, Myrtle, I’m going to be a minister,” Mahan said. “And she said, yeah, and they’re going to fly an airplane. You’re going to run an engine on the train. And, she started naming all the things I said, but this is different. How is it different? I don’t know, but it just is.”
And his service eventually led him to northern Michigan, after his church gave him a month off for vacation. He now spends every summer with his wife Marcia in Boyne Falls.
“I called my brother and said, where is that place Up North?” Mahan said. Where a bear mother and cubs were a little thing in the window when you woke up one morning? He told me about this place, and so that that’s how I got started up here.”
That lifetime has brought Chester countless relationships within the church.
“I thought one time when I was serving communion, it was easter Sunday in the church, and I thought, I know something about every one of these people that, I wouldn’t share with anybody,” said Mahan. “But, what a privilege to have the relationship.”
When asked the secret to living for so long, he had some advice to follow.
“A matter of exercise and eating right, eating healthy food and especially learning to deal with anxiety and tension,” Mahan said. “Kind of a three-legged stool. But that’s the hardest one is deal with tension.”
And a life well lived comes with lessons along the way.
“Trust to not be afraid,” Mahan said. “Be yourself wherever you are. I don’t know where this came, but bloom where you’re planted. Follow your dreams, have something you think is significant. And hang onto it and do it.”