Daily Devotions and Podcasts

SCRIPTURE Psalm 139: 8 If I descend to the depths of Sheol, you are there.  WORDS OF HOPE I remember the day my mother quit going to church. She had long been a faithful member of Cochran Chapel Methodist and head of the Care Corps for 17 years. Though she could no longer drive, needed the assistance of a walker, and lived in assisted living, a friend picked her up every Sunday so that she could worship in community. The reason she gave for not going was that it was too painful and laborious to get ready, given her severe osteoarthritis. Though that made sense, I wasn’t convinced that this was the whole truth. After looking back on the early stages of mom’s dementia, I think it was equally likely that she did not want her memory issues exposed as they would be on Sunday mornings when she wrapped up folks in her large-hearted embrace and caught up on how they were. Soon she could not manage her medications herself and later I found that her practice of doing the daily crossword wasn’t all that it seemed: she was filling in letters for the responses, but they didn’t spell a word. The most painful and difficult manifestations of the disease were the anger and aggression. Seemingly overnight the person who mothered scores of young women in the boarding program at the school where we both worked, whose “Millie hugs” and listening ear soothed fears and anxieties, became reactive and hostile with aides, and therefore she became increasingly isolated. Before the most severe stages set in, I’d had a conversation with mom trying to affirm God’s presence in the midst of her pain. With the assuredness of an experienced teacher correcting an uppity student, she said, “Pat, I talk with Jesus every day.” As the grey fog closed in around her, I so wished that, in the core of her interior self, that were still true. In my own friendships and congregational care work, I journey with caregivers pretty regularly, often for a family member with dementia. One friend shared, after a few years of caregiving, that when her husband died, she could only remember the person whom disease had radically diminished and feared that it would be so forever. But after months, the bright, lively, funny man she and her daughters loved returned in memory. Recently, as a friend and I sat over brunch, she shared advice a supportive physician gave her in the early days of her husband’s condition: 1. Preserve Ted’s dignity (name changed for privacy). 2)Take the actions she must take to keep herself and Ted safe. 3) When Ted balks at a decision she has made thoughtfully and with care, his preferences must be set aside. She must do the thing anyway. Writer Louise Penny’s has offered her own experiences about her husband’s Alzheimer’s and the grief of losing him. Penny and her husband Michael, a pediatric hematologist and brilliant scientist, decided that they were going to go public with the diagnosis to try to educate others and dispel some of the shame about the disease, a shame which drives families behind closed doors and into isolation. In an article for AARP, the mystery writer tells of the promises she made to Michael in the early stages-- for example, that she would never leave him behind and that they would never leave their rambling home in the country. But as the situation worsened, she had to break those promises, moving into a smaller, single level condo, and others for safety and to be able to navigate daily life with less stress. Though there were times that were hard, hard, hard and she was exhausted and wept often, her deep love for Michael sustained her. And, rather than losing him quickly to a heart attack or stroke, she and Michael had the “long goodbye,” as Nancy Regan called it. Every day she whispered into her beloved’s ear: “You are magnificent. You are brave……You are safe and you are loved.” https://www.aarp.org/caregiving/stories/mystery-writer-essay/ I was not with my mother when her great heart failed, but it was a blessing when the Sunday before, two friends who loved her encircled her bed with me while I prayed for the light and love of her homegoing. PRAYER Be with us at the end, O God, no matter our condition. Whisper into our ear, “You are magnificent. You are safe, and I love you.” Amen. DEVOTION AUTHOR Dr. Pat Saxon