Archive | June, 2025

Comfort for Alzheimers

25 Jun

A friend agonizes over his dearly loved wife, she is deep into the oblivion of Alzheimers. We share in a weekly conversation and he often, usually, shares his distress that she may be distant from the God she has loved and served for over seven decades. She is a happy presence in the care facility, where she manifests a joy that brightens everyone who has contact with her.  He begs God to remember her in her isolation. I have attempted to reassure him, but it is an horrendous dilemma for us both.

Last week we discussed Ephesians 1:15-23. It is an astonishing insight into the experience of a follower of Jesus! As we explored it together, a sense of wonder and awe seized us – I mean the same power that raised Christ from the dead is operating in us!

As we explored the thought that this experience is so vast that it is beyond human ability or capability, but it is enjoyed as a gift from the Holy Spirit, a shaft of light illuminated a thought. 

But first, here is the passage: “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, 19 and his incomparably great power for us who trust, who have faith.

To know Him better! The word “know” comes from the Greek” gnosis” and simply means knowledge. But Paul here adds the preposition “epi” to the word know. Epi intensifies the knowledge, making it epic. It refers not to intellectual comprehension, but to vivid experience. So we are dependent on the Holy Spirit to open the eyes of our understanding and promote the experience of resurrection power.

As we marveled at this, and it struck me with the force of a blow to the solar plexus, breath taking – if this experience is supra-human, that is, not something we activate and energize, then it is quite certain that his wife may actually be enjoying a more vital enjoyment of God than we are! We both got goose bumps with wonder and awe

Notice that this is something “given” to us, and that Paul “keeps asking.”  It parallels what Jesus said, “How Blessed!.. Are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness! For they shall be filled” 

The hymn says, “I hunger and I thirst, Jesus my manna be.”

Even so, Lord, I am hungry, I will keep asking with my beggars bowl, and keep receiving with a simple “Thank You.” 

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The Illusion of Control

25 Jun

Last night our dishwasher sprang a leak and the kitchen floor was filmed with water. I attempted to shut the water supply off under the sink, but the valve had calcified and it was immoveable. I attempted to control the situation by spraying it with WD 40. I thought it was loosening and applied more pressure with a spanner. The shaft of the valve sheared right off and water started spraying under the sink. I dashed for the main water supply and shut it off. But it too has calcified and all my efforts reduced the water to a trickle that I cannot remedy. Many times events have spiralled out of my control. Sometimes the outcome was pleasant, and at other times beyond belief catastrophic.  

In an idle moment, renowned National Geographic photographer Pete McBride, lounging on a couch,  suggested to journalist Kevin Fedarko that they do a thru-hike of the Grand Canyon. “It will be a walk in the park” he maintained. Thru-hiking the Grand Canyon is daunting even  to veteran hikers and requires intensive planning and massive support with food caches at strategic points. It is not for the faint hearted. Fortunately the thru-hiking community saw through their amateur status and stepped up in support. Even so, Fedarko came to this conclusion, that is applicable to all of life:

“Sooner or later, every difficult journey collides against a moment that crystallizes the imperative of accepting that the outcome of any ambitious undertaking can neither be ordained nor engineered by its participants, and that the heart of an odyssey is reached-and its deeper truths begin to reveal themselves—only after the illusion of control is permitted to fall away and disappear into the gathering night, like a loose pebble over a cliff.”

Kevin Fedarko. “A Walk in the Park”.

Searching for God is an unimaginably daunting and ambitious undertaking. God says of Himself, “I am the high and holy One who Inhabits eternity.” “Holy” in the Bible means other-than, God is “different” to mortal flesh and blood. That is, he is outside of space and time. Where all our scientific data end, that is where He dwells. To know Him requires handing Him control, or, to state the obvious, trusting Him. Some are content with a shallow self indulgent search and abandon the journey at the first obstacles.  

Read the sentence again.

“. . .  the imperative of accepting that the outcome of any ambitious undertaking can neither be ordained nor engineered by its participants, and that the heart of an odyssey is reached-and its deeper truths begin to reveal themselves.” 

Job discovered this – he lost everything, property, livestock, family, and finally his health. He searches for God to hold Him accountable for all this suffering. And finally God shows up and reveals His Highness and His Holiness: This new perspective brings Job to confess, “I had heard of you, but now my eyes have seen you.” The ocean depths have been little explored because of the difficulties involved. God has depths that no mortal can fathom, no equipment is available and His purposes go beyond our understanding.

What shall we do?

1 Peter 5:6-7: “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”. 

“The proper time” is not something we like to hear. Yet to reach the deeper truths, we must give up control, “casting all our care on Him.” 

Soldiers who suffered together have a special bond that only they understand and share between themselves. God suffers too and draws into just such a special bond. Every tear that humans have shed formed  in God’s eye first. Suffering takes us to a special place in God’s suffering heart.

“Proper time” has another dimension – the other dimension involves your exaltation. Trust changes the perspective of suffering from self-pity to contentment. 

The other dimension is an exalted view of God, and exalted experience of God, an exalted place in eternity with God.

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MAKING SPACE IN A GRIEVING HEART

11 Jun

“I can’t breathe!” I gasped to friends at the funeral of my grandson Geoffrey. The pressure in my chest felt unbearable. That constriction of the heart pressing on the diaphragm is true of all grieving. 

Ioana Hociota, was married to Andrew Holycross. They were doing the challenging Grand Canyon thru-hike, a traverse from North to South through remote unmarked back country, when she slipped on a patch of ice and fell to her death. Kevin Fedarko makes an observation that is an essential aspect of grieving – – eventually a space will open up in the constricted  heart.

“In the days immediately following Hociota’s death, he (Holycross) had formed an intense hatred toward the canyon for having taken her from him—a feeling that festered for weeks, until eventually, despite his best efforts, its grip slowly began to loosen. Eventually, with the passage of time, somewhere inside his heart a space opened in which he was able to revisit the memories of the times they had spent and the things they had done together in the world beneath the rims. And as his love for the landscape returned to him, with it came the possibility that he might consider allowing himself to return to the land.” (Kevin Fedarko. “A Walk in the Park”)

Some advised me, “Time will bring healing.” I thought to myself, “I do not want to be healed. I want to remember him, I want to honor him. I need to feel raw.” Job’s friends did the right thing: “11 When three of Job’s friends heard of the tragedy he had suffered, they got together and traveled from their homes to comfort and console him. . . . 13 Then they sat on the ground with him for seven days and nights. No one said a word to Job, for they saw that his suffering was too great for words.” (Job 2) 

I rushed to the hospital the instant I heard a good friend’s 6 year old died. His best friend arrived soon after and asked me before entering the room, “What do I say?” I replied, “He will not remember what you said. He will remember you came. Just hug him.”

“Today was a Difficult Day,” said Pooh.

There was a pause.

“Do you want to talk about it?” asked Piglet.

“No,” said Pooh after a bit. “No, I don’t think I do.”

“That’s okay,” said Piglet, and he came and sat beside his friend.

“What are you doing?” asked Pooh.

“Nothing, really,” said Piglet. “Only, I know what Difficult Days are like. I quite often don’t feel like talking about it on my Difficult Days either.

“But goodness,” continued Piglet, “Difficult Days are so much easier when you know you’ve got someone there for you. And I’ll always be here for you,

How did God react?

Isaiah 41:10: “So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

I rushed to the hospital the instant I heard a congregant’s 6 year old died. His best friend arrived soon after and asked me before entering the room, “What do I say?” I replied, “He will not remember what you said. He will remember you came. Just hug him.”

God’s Reassurance

 I have called you by name; you are mine.
2 When you go through deep waters,
    I will be with you.
When you go through rivers of difficulty,
    you will not drown. Isaiah 43)

Take heart, grieving friends, space will open up, life will resume, and the raw wound will develop a beautiful scar as a constant and visible reminder of a deeply loved one; anguish will soften as joyful memories begin to replace bewilderment.

An earthquake changed the landscape, it will never be the same, but there will be a different beauty will emerge from the ravished land. 

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