I’m 69 and I
take care of my mother who is 91. She has short-term memory loss. She can still
play games; we just have to explain them each time. She can read and talk about
politics, but she usually forgets that Trump is president and what we have said
about him. She remembers the past very well and talks about her childhood.
Her favorite
show is “Father Brown.” It is a British show about a priest who solves murders.
He is also a kind and spiritual priest who says wonderful things about God. The
thing is, she doesn’t remember the shows after she watches them.
At first, I
found different shows after we had watched all of “Father Brown”, but she would
see a picture of him on Netflix and say, “I love “Father Brown”. I’d like to
watch that.” So now, I just have that show on all the time for her when it is
just the two of us up and about. My husband and her watch other things.
What I found
really interesting is that we also watch Joyce Meyer, the preacher, every day. But
there is a big difference. She remembers the shows! If there are two of them to
watch and I choose the one we watched before she will say, “We’ve seen this
one.”
When my
husband was in the hospital for a procedure that went all wrong, he became very
sick. I went in his room one morning and he looked at me and said, “Who are
you?” I left the room and started bawling in the hallway. A nurse ran up and
asked me why I was crying and I said, “My husband doesn’t even know who I am.”
All hell
broke loose; doctors came running from everywhere. It turned out that during
the procedure the doctor had cut open his liver and didn’t know it. They did
save him and he was okay. He got his memory back.
He told me
later that when he had woken up, he had remembered God and Jesus, but that was
all. He hadn’t even known who he was or why he was in a hospital. He said
remembering Jesus gave him peace of mind. He wasn’t worried.
When my
nephew became very sick with schizophrenia, the only time he talked sanely was
when he talked with me about whether there was a God and what he was like. We talked
on and off for about 6 months. The last time I saw him he told me he believed
in God and given his life to him. A few days later he was dead by suicide.
I find all
this beautiful and encouraging, how God can speak to and live in our minds no
matter how sick we are, no matter how our minds are affected.
No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor principalities, 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.
Romans 8:38,39
