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| Mum's Laundry Port Coquitlam, BC, Canada, 1960 |
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Psalm 118:24 (NIV)
Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s Disease, Lou Gehrig’s Disease… Such illnesses destroy the brain, stealing personality, beliefs, a lifetime effort at being kind and helping to make the world a better place. A sense of meaning and purpose disappears even as destructive emotions take over in many: anger, meanness, anxiety, irritability, violence. Study of Scripture and dedication to God are challenged and people are left as someone they never were.
My mother is such a victim. She suffers dementia, and while she remains content for the most part, and grateful for everything being done on her behalf, I can see that her frustration is beginning to mount. On a simple level, she’s weary of always looking for her glasses, her book, the bathroom, the garbage. “It’s all I do anymore,” she says. But what upsets her more is that that she can’t find a way to be helpful, to be useful, “to pay my own way,” as she puts it. “I have no meaning anymore,” she told me last night. “No purpose. There’s nothing for me to do. I just take up space. I might as well be dead.”
I’ve never known my mother to be so depressed, certainly never this frustrated. If something stood in her way, she simply mowed it down—and never a look back. Not sure what to do to make her feel better, I gave her the task of folding laundry. The effort exhausted her; she finally gave up in defeat. I’ve never known her to do that either. This is a woman who once hand washed diapers for three babies! And so the disease progresses and she becomes a person she never was.
I have to ask—where is God for such a person? If folding laundry is a mystery, it’s only a matter of time before God ceases to make sense. And as her memory fades, so will God. What then?
I’m left with a mystery as befuddling as the laundry.
I’m also left with Psalm 118:24. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God.
And neither will Alzheimer’s. Or Parkinson’s, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, or any other insidious disease.
Nothing will separate us from the love of God.
My mother is such a victim. She suffers dementia, and while she remains content for the most part, and grateful for everything being done on her behalf, I can see that her frustration is beginning to mount. On a simple level, she’s weary of always looking for her glasses, her book, the bathroom, the garbage. “It’s all I do anymore,” she says. But what upsets her more is that that she can’t find a way to be helpful, to be useful, “to pay my own way,” as she puts it. “I have no meaning anymore,” she told me last night. “No purpose. There’s nothing for me to do. I just take up space. I might as well be dead.”
I’ve never known my mother to be so depressed, certainly never this frustrated. If something stood in her way, she simply mowed it down—and never a look back. Not sure what to do to make her feel better, I gave her the task of folding laundry. The effort exhausted her; she finally gave up in defeat. I’ve never known her to do that either. This is a woman who once hand washed diapers for three babies! And so the disease progresses and she becomes a person she never was.
I have to ask—where is God for such a person? If folding laundry is a mystery, it’s only a matter of time before God ceases to make sense. And as her memory fades, so will God. What then?
I’m left with a mystery as befuddling as the laundry.
I’m also left with Psalm 118:24. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God.
And neither will Alzheimer’s. Or Parkinson’s, or Lou Gehrig’s Disease, or any other insidious disease.
Nothing will separate us from the love of God.
Dear Lord: Thank you for the assurance that, in the end, you love us still.
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