Alzheimer’s

For those who long for freedom

 IMG_1847

You feel grounded, rooted to this spot, and you feel like things can’t change soon enough. You feel discouragement nipping at your heels because you have the sense that by the time things do finally change it will be too late.

This is a prayer for those who are in the uncomfortable place of waiting:

For a change…..the crack of dawn in the darkness……for healing to come…..to get out from under that boss…..to not have to view the world from the window anymore. Maybe it’s the past that keeps pulling you back. Maybe it’s just one person.

You want to hit the open road and never look back because fighting the good fight is tiring. You don’t want to be the one left behind anymore, you want to be the one planning to fly off to fun without a care in the world. You want to get off the Merry-Go-Round and take a turn on the Ferris Wheel.

Maybe you’re in a care-taking role you never asked for, and you feel like you have been playing that role most of your life and you want another part in the play. Maybe it’s a parent who really hasn’t ever been there, and you wonder why in the world you feel you have to be there for them.

And even now, in their weakness, their neediness, their disease, their negative words still have the power to deliver a death sentence to your hopes and dreams, to rob you of every victory you ever almost enjoyed. But only if you let them.

Sometimes you wonder why God keeps them alive and you feel like it’ll only be after they’re gone that you will taste true freedom………part of that freedom will be the absence of the albatross of all that guilt hanging around your neck.

Stand tall, and know that God is fighting with you and for you today. Even now, it’s His freedom, His salvation that makes it possible to continue doing what you do. You have the living promise “that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” Because of Him, hope has made a permanent home in your heart and right now, today you are a living testimony with a future filled with promise.

Hope flickers like a candle in her heart and this hope is what the negative voices have tried to stamp out again and again but the voices are becoming silent now because this is her time. The seed that hope planted in her heart has given birth to success, and no one and nothing can ever take that away, because now she knows she is worthy. Sometimes you must have the courage to step over the loss of that thing you never had in order to have the strength to move on.

Take heart, take hope today. He has already given you success. He is with you in the middle of wherever you are. It’s true freedom He gives and it belongs to you today!

The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing. Zephaniah 3:17

 

When God sounds a lot like your Mom

 

IMG_2919

Fresh off a morning commute, shouldering my bag, my backpack, everything necessary to supply me with what I might need for a 12 hour day. Grumbling a bit in my head, wishing I were home to enjoy the beautiful morning from my patio instead of spending it in a room without windows. I heard it……it was the voice I always hear when I hear birds sing.

I hear it especially when I am feeling a bit of regret, or sadness, or feeling a bit sorry for myself. It was my Mom’s voice I heard. And it knocked me for a loop because I had always thought that voice was God’s, but that day, I clearly heard hers.

“But the birds are singing, Lori.” Just that one sentence. Because I know what it costs her to hear them no matter what. My Mom doesn’t have an easy chair life. I have covered that before here in this blog. Though she is 85 she is up with the chickens. Already serving, praying, looking to Him for strength.

It’s hard to imagine just how deep a Mom’s love can go, but I found out a little bit more when I was home last. She was cleaning out the cedar chest, and as each item was lifted out she told the story that went along with it. Among the old report cards and drawings there was a broom I had made out of pine-needles held together with masking tape. “To clean up our camp,” she said. She cradled each item like prized artifacts.

Then, she lifted up a summer jumpsuit in white. I had forgotten all about  it. I could hear her grief all over again as she said, “This is what you came home from Mexico in.” She paused. Where I had faced the biggest grief of my life and hers, for a child’s sorrow is double for the parent. “I had expected you to look half-dead and instead you looked like a beautiful angel.”

As I get older, I see more of her in me. There are things we do just alike. Shape meatloaf for one. We don’t just slap it in a pan, we mix it, and shape it and mold it. And when we look in a mirror, we arrange our faces just so.

And we have a built-in desire to set about making a place homey. She and I bring wineglasses throw-rugs and coffee makers to campsites.

The way we always try to deflect a compliment.

Most of all, what holds our days and our hearts together like a ribbon is prayer. She taught me that.

This day is a day to honor Mother’s everywhere, and I honor her. I thank God for her everyday, that I still have her. I am also aware that there are many for whom this day holds much sadness.

It’s a day they grieve what they never had, or what they had and lost. Mother’s Day was always hard for my Mom. Her Mom wasn’t ever able to give what she needed most. She withheld love and affection, and compliments, though she gave other things.

And today we will see Elaine’s Mom, and that will be hard. We may or may not take her out to lunch. We will see how it goes. With Alzheimer’s you have to be ready for anything.

Mother’s Day has always been fraught with difficulty for her too. Her Mom was never there as a Mom should be. The other day she held up a card at the store with a weight on her shoulders. “This day is always so difficult.” She picked up the one with puppies, “Yes,” we said, “puppies are safe.”

Sometimes Mother’s Day means losing the Mother you never had, and that’s like a double grief isn’t it? But even in that, there is redemption. Because when you allow God to fill you with His grace, you can then hand that out to others. Even others you never received it from.

Today, as I lift up thanks for my own Mom, I pray for all those for whom this day is hard. I pray that God will wash you in His grace and wrap you in His great love.

And listen………for when you hear the birds sing, it’s always God disguised as your Mom.

On Alzheimer’s and feeling lost

Lodi Lake 4

We had plans to go to dinner with our neighbors from Canada who were leaving the next morning. She called me on the way to her Moms Carehome after work and asked if I would please go over and give them her apologies, that she wouldn’t be able to make it.

She was driving her route when she got the first two calls and couldn’t return them. After work, she returned the third call. One of the aides picked up. “Your Mom is not doing well, she is crying and asking why no one has been to see her and asking where her husband is?” He has been gone for almost a year and she hasn’t asked about him in just about that many months.

Her Mom has been in the facility over a year and she has settled reasonably well. But now, this.

The panic, the caregiver’s stress, in a moment it all came flooding back. Of course it never really left. Her days continue to be divided by work, home and going to see her Mom to do those tasks that seem to fall through the cracks continually.

I needed to go there, I heard the desperation in her voice and I thought maybe seeing another familiar person would help jog her Mom back into the present. I had to try.

When I got there they were seated at the dining table. E. was relieved to see me and her Mom perked up and said, “There’s Lori, Curtis must have come with her.” I groaned inwardly, and E. scurried around helping her Mom and assisting others at the table. I sat by Bethany and Joyce as they were passing out Dixie cups of ice-cream and had one myself.

Finally we got her to go back to her room, where we found she had been squirreling away socks and two bottles of water in her purse, ready to hit the road. Then the round of questions started all over again.

Where is Curtis?……When are we going home?……How long have I been here?……..What happened to the car?….. How much does all this cost?…..What do I have to do at the house?

It was like she was reliving the events of the past year all over again, back to square one.

E. looked over at me helplessly when Joyce asked where Curtis was for the 10th time. I shrugged helplessly back and mouthed the words…..”I don’t know.”

It was a day later that I had a kind of small personal epiphany. Sometimes, honestly, I feel just as lost as she does. I think we all do. We like to think we have an element of control, but as I sat in that room I wanted to ask the same questions Joyce was asking.

What happened to the last year? Where am I? Why do I feel so ill-equipped at handling day-to-day living sometimes? What happened to the person I was 5, 10, 15 years ago?

Sometimes life just beats the tar out of you.

By the time we left, Elaine was wiped out. She felt like she had propelled her Mom safely back to shore, but it took everything she had.

If dealing with Alzheimer’s has taught me anything, it’s taught me empathy. In watching Joyce, I see a bit of my own desperation and the desperation of the human condition in general. In the mirror of her lostness, I see my own.

It has also taught me the necessity of living one day at a time and doing the best I can with what God has given me. There are days that are hard, when you feel a little bit crazy, but then the next day is better.

And as long as God is the One rowing me safely back to shore, I will be okay.

Christmas adds burden, Christ relieves them

IMG_4196

It’s as I am taking her clothes out of the dryer that it hits me. How sad it still is.

It’s been a year since Elaine‘s Mom went into Assisted Living. She still comes to visit through her clothes which I lift out of the dryer one after another along with my thoughts. I see her name, Joyce, printed on the inside of the neckline. That’s what you do once you go there. Things sometimes get lost. Clothes get mixed up like the identities, the individuals that reside there.

Will there be a time when I have my name written on my clothes? That’s a tough question that I would rather not answer.

I hope Jesus comes first.

Her Granddaughter offered to decorate her room for Christmas and she said, “I don’t believe in Christmas.” The Granddaughter recoiled……both shocked and saddened. E. was not surprised. The question remains: When do you stop trying to bring color into someone’s world when gray is where they are most comfortable? Celebrations and decorations make her ill at ease, she asks things like, “Who put those there?”

But bringing color is what we try to do because we think it will help.

Yet sometimes the best kind of helping means we meet them in their world, where they live.

I have just been writing a memory for my Dad and it makes me feel like the keeper of the flame, because keeping those memories alive for another is to stand in a place of honor. The thought flows through my mind like a ghost……..how would it be to have your memory wiped clean? No memory of last year, or even 10 minutes before?

As I lift the clothes out, I remember how hard it was when she was here. So hard. And she is happier there. Her version of happy anyway. So E. continues to meet her in her world. She brings her Snickers because she likes those more than anything. She does what needs doing and she brings hope to the nurses and residents there.

You might think there is not much hope residing there, but hope sometimes comes when and where you least expect it. As E. stopped to talk to the lady who knits, she noticed lots of hats. The lady said, “I am knitting these for the kids…..the kids who have cancer. Is there any way you could see that they get there? To the sick children?”

E. said, her mind racing about when but knowing somehow she would find a way. “Yes, I will make sure they get there. And I will see if I can get a picture to bring back.”

Her face lit up. She is one who wants to bring color to others. Even though she can’t take them herself. Even there she carries hope.

Today, as I rush around and feel the stress of Christmas I remember that though Christmas and all that comes with the celebration of it might carry a weight, it’s only one I put on myself. For Christ never adds a burden, He only relieves it.

I suddenly remember why it is I am doing all this. I turn off the Christmas songs and turn up the praise songs. And I kneel on the dirty floor I still haven’t cleaned. And suddenly I am very happy I am making these cookies. I watch as they puff up in the oven. The stars, the angels, the bells, and the boot. I think of how Lauryn and I will decorate them when I see her. I smile.

I may or may not get to the floor. But somehow it no longer matters.

Carehomes: Not for wimps

Lodi lake

Those who spend any time at all in Care homes  come away with a new appreciation for the people who live there and the people who work there. Since Elaine’s Mom was moved into an assisted living facility I accompany her there quite often. I have said in the past that Care homes are the great equalizer. Assisted living care homes are kind of like a glammed up version of the other kind. The kind where people never leave their beds or their chairs.

I have come up with my own names for these places, and you might have come up with your own:  

Roach Motel

Purgatory

Heaven’s Portal

Last stop before death

I don’t mean to make light of a situation that I know first hand is a very tough and in some cases very agonizing decision, but my humor gets me through a lot and I call on it often. Sometimes there is nothing else you can do.

The other day Elaine went to take her Mom’s laundry back. She went up to room 12 but her door was locked. She knocked…..no answer. She went to the neighboring facility but she wasn’t there either. With arms full of stuff, she went back and asked the staff. Then she got the key and unlocked the door. Her Mom had locked herself in. When Elaine asked her why she didn’t come to the door she shrugged. “Tired, I guess.” Was all she said.

Part of the reason may be a lady who tends to follow people around. Joyce always refers to her as a he. Her hair is very short. Martha tends to get in your face. She came up to where Elaine and her Mom were sitting in the common room and proceeded to poke Elaine in the chest where her glasses were hanging. She gets aggressive at times.

Referring to Martha, one of the aides remarked, “You know she’s gay, right?” Elaine remarked, “I don’t care what she is, I just don’t want my glasses broken.” Evidently, one day Martha cornered one of the aids in a room and asked for a kiss. The aide turned her cheek to her, but Martha grabbed her and turned her head and layed one on her full force. Even tried to give her some tongue. EEW! The aide said, “I couldn’t believe how strong she was!”

As they continued to visit, Martha kept coming back. Then she got real close to Joyce and was rubbing her shoulder. Elaine felt her Mom stiffen up. She knew what was coming.

Her Mom has always had a problem with touching of any kind.  That’s a psychological study all on its own. She has always frowned on any public (or private for that matter) display of affection. “Why is he doing that?” She said to Elaine and then as she grabbed Martha’s hand in a vise grip, she said. “If you don’t stop, I will knock you across the room.”

The manager was sitting across the room and had to stifle her laughter behind the paperwork she was unsuccessfully trying to finish.

Then there is Jim. We met the first time when he backed us into his room after we remarked about his pictures. He blocked the doorway with his wheelchair and proceeded to tell us how he could still do all kinds of stuff. He proceeded to stand up as he said, “Even sex.” Needless to say, we backed out of the room as soon as we could. The staff said that Jim gets hostile as well. He also threatened the cook and called him, let’s just say the worst thing you could call a black person.

His son left him there and hasn’t been back since. From what I have seen, I have learned to withhold my judgement when I hear stories like that. There is grief and heartache all the way around a situation like that.

I heard one little old lady named Lucy say one day, “Jesus is not in here.” But I don’t totally agree with Lucy. There are saints there. People who do the jobs no one else wants to do, for very little money.

And we have met people there that we have fallen in love with. Despite where they are, they have brought the Light in with them. One of them is Ardis. Ardis used to work in theater and she has a big wave for us and a smile whenever we see her. She always looks sharp and her hair is always stylish. Ardis had a stroke and her words tumble out all scattered and out-of-order. But sometimes she says a perfect sentence, and then beams.

Sometimes you can get the gist of what she means, and sometimes it’s like playing charades. But she always laughs along with us. Lately she hasn’t felt well, and we are worried.

Then there is John. He is a sweet-heart. Both Ardis and John have family who come in all the time.

Whenever I go there, I am always a bit uneasy. I sense the Grim-Reaper in the halls. I sense the hopelessness that Satan brings wherever he goes, sometimes his foul breath curdles the air. Sometimes he needles me with fear.

He taunts me. 

This is your future home……..Strangers to eat with, strangers to sit with………having to trust someone you don’t know…..this is your future.

But I know different. I remember the ones like Ardis, and Jim. How they carry their hope with them, and though their bodies are failing, their spirits are full of life, of love. They have made the decision to trust in something bigger than themselves.

When we visited Ardis, she said….”I…..ready……

And she looked toward Heaven.

She is. She knows who holds her future. And so do I.

For I know the plans I have for you,” says the LORD. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. Jeremiah 29:11

Answers from the Psalms

A Provision Story

Antique%20Sign

She’d moved the thing for years, and when it finally teetered to place on its graceful clawed feet she vowed never again. Then she cried. It was the last thing of her Mom’s to move over and the most stressful.

Like an unwelcome but distinguished guest it stood innocently in one corner while the contemporary one stood on the other side as if they were fighting for space; a face off in the dining room. We mourned the loss of our empty wall. It went with nothing else in the room.

Because her parents had moved everywhere she did, the china cabinet came too. It was her Mom’s most prized possession. For years Elaine has had the emotional and physical stress of moving it, and with each move it had become more of a millstone around her neck. She had horrific visions of the thing crashing to the ground like a redwood, the irreplaceable glass in shards on the ground.

After her Mom went into assisted living she thought surely someone in the family would want it. No one did. It went on eBay. One woman actually laughed in her face when she told her the price. And believe me, the price was very fair considering what it was.

This past Monday, we decided to try our hand at antique dealing. We were committed to an all day mission; to finding it, in addition to around 500 assorted glass pieces a home.

The first guy was friendly and talkative, but not very interested in anything else.

When we walked in the second place, there were three women at the counter and all three heads swiveled in our direction.  One of them looked at us stony-faced from behind her computer the whole time we were there.  The only time she actually cracked a smile and chortled was when Elaine said, “I have been stuck with all this crap all these years now, 25 boxes worth.”

The second woman, the spokeswoman of the group, almost threw up the sign of the cross with her fingers at the mention of glassware. “We only do furniture.” She must have said it 4 times. It was obvious she didn’t know an Occupied Japan Toby from a Matchbox car. Don’t worry if you don’t either.

Ms. “Only do furniture” wasn’t interested in the China Cabinet.

Our next stop took us 15 miles away to downtown. We refused to be discouraged.

We entered through the alley, starting to feel a little like beat-down used car salesmen, but still holding out hope. A man looking like a cross between Garrison Keillor and Norman Bates sat hunched over and peering intently into his computer screen, very loudly crunching on Sun Chips.

I couldn’t even catch her eye. I know my friend, and one of her pet peeves is people eating loud foods in her ear and clacking loudly on the keyboard and this guy was doing both. I wondered how long she would last. It was a test.

We thought maybe he would stop eating as he bent closer to look at the pictures she held out via her phone, but as he paused with one chip poised in the air, he leaned even closer and took the whole thing in his mouth and crunched even louder. I almost laughed out loud.

I saw his eyes flicker with interest as he got up from the chair, wiping Sun Chip dust on his slightly smudgy jeans as they talked. “Well,” he said, “will you be home tonight? I would like to see what you have, and my friend might be interested in the cabinet.”

He came around 5:15 and looked at everything she had for sale, including things which were not. He seemed to be making himself at home but it was educational, he seemed to know his stuff. He then called his buddy and gave him directions to our house.

His buddy pulled up later in a 2012 Super Sport black corvette. After inspection, he said he did in fact, want the China cabinet. He said he had 6 others at home by the same maker. He took a few other things as well, including a gun that had belonged to her Dad. “The safety is faulty,” she told him, but he didn’t seem to mind as he pointed it in my general direction. Elaine told me it might be good if I stepped to the side. I agreed.

He couldn’t hear a thing, and his voice boomed throughout the house. The cats hid under the beds. He regaled us with stories, this good old boy who did two tours in Vietnam and came home with a purple heart, and who just happened to collect antiques. Who would have thought?

The next day he and his buddy backed up a trailer while I herded cats.

He came in laughing and booming out instructions to his friend, who repeated everything he said under his breath in a very raspy voice sounding much like Red Green, that goofy Canadian guy who fixes everything with duct tape. It was like a comedy routine.

I watched from the window with a blow-by-blow description for Elaine who was pacing nervously from room to room. I gasped as they tipped it end over end and slid it into the trailer.  And we both let out a breath when we watched the tail lights receding down the street.

It wasn’t just the end of a piece of furniture it was another step closer to freedom for her.  One step closer toward her own life again.

Later that night we drank a toast in celebration, but not before we said a prayer of thanks for a God who provides in some very creative and humorous ways. “When I heard that guy crunching those chips,” she said, “It was like God was telling me that He was gonna do this for me, but that I was going to have to jump through a couple of hoops first.”

Before he left our new friend left his business and cell number. When Elaine showed him some projects she has done, he said: “If you need anything for any project, just call me. I have a whole workshop at your disposal.”

We smiled when we remembered how we prayed, asking God for success, for a sale. And I am always amazed at who and how He comes through. A chip crunching antique dealer and a purple hearted vet who said yes to his wife’s request for a house filled with antiques.

God is so good.

It all comes down to Jesus

The Peace of God

It all comes down to Jesus.

When we got home from visiting Elaine’s Mom yesterday, I called my own Mom. It was her voice I was hearing when I thought, “It all comes down to Jesus.”

It’s not easy to go there. To visit the places where they check in but they don’t check out, except through death. It’s easy to put thoughts of mortality on the back burner when you are feeling good, doing something you love to do but as soon as you walk through those doors, it all comes front and center.

I call care homes the great equalizers. We may not all end up there, but we are all heading that direction. Justin Bieber will be there someday and so will Tom Cruise. Hard to imagine, unless you see it often. When you see people whose minds have slipped away you think, “There but for the grace of God go any of us.”

Yesterday, the whole time we were there, one lady carried her bedding from door to door, trying to get out, to go home. We were there for an hour and she never stopped. And at night, the staff said, it gets even worse.

One lady is not that old at all, but she suffered a stroke, and her words come out all scattered, like if you took a complete sentence and scrambled up the words that’s how it would come out. Like, “You…..know…..she…..think……my…..son…..train…..second…..year. She always looks stylish and classy and she always smiles when she sees us and points to Elaine’s Mom. I wonder what she would tell us if she could only string those words together?

Another lady has Alzheimer’s and yet they say when she sits down at the organ she can play any hymn you can name. Still another asks me how many kids I have every time I go in there. I think maybe I will give her a different answer every time, or maybe just tell her I have ten.

Whenever I leave there, it seems the birds sound sweeter, the sky seems bluer, life becomes something I want to inhale deeply. When it all comes down to it, we will sell everything we have now and all we will have left will be Jesus. Or not.

I always remember my sister-in-law, who found out how real Jesus was before she passed away at 43 of ovarian cancer. At the end, one of the songs she wanted at her service was, “Just Give Me Jesus.” She learned that as long as she had Him, she had everything.

If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it. And what do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul?Is anything worth more than your soul?

No Lord, not one, single solitary thing.

 

When the thing you dream of is happening

Finding God from where we are

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17

The trip is happening today, the one she dreamed of when she was overwhelmed, buried and burdened with care-giving. At one point, she gave up on all of it. Of ever having any vacation again. But now her Mom is settled and in a safe place. Yet tattered remnants of guilt remain. When you have been a caregiver for so long, guilt has a way of becoming a constant companion. It permeates your life and settles around you like smoke at a campfire.

I really think certain types of caregiving almost become a variation of the Stockholm syndrome, where hostages express empathy and sympathy and even have positive feelings for their captors. Especially when you are dealing with cases involving Dementia and Alzheimer’s. Of course, the one you are caring for is not a captor but usually someone you love or at the least someone you feel duty bound to care for. Because you want to. Because it’s the right thing.

Yet sometimes, when you are finally free, you don’t want to allow yourself that freedom. That’s an old trick of Satan, and personally, I don’t want to give him any satisfaction whatsoever. So we are taking this time off and accepting it as the gift from God that it is, with joy and anticipation.

Today, Elaine and I fly to Seattle and plan to eat seafood, see our dear friend and gaze in wonder at the ocean once more. And we will thank God for getting us through everything that went before. If you want a taste of it, just click on the sidebar under the Alzheimer’s category. It is with gratitude in our hearts that we will take this trip and savor every minute of it.

Hopefully, I will get a post in over the next week, but if I don’t you will know why.

For now, I am retreating for a few minutes of prayer as light starts to fill the sky and a day of promise begins. And we have a plane to catch.

Thankfulness and the poop of life

559127_3860196545390_828885607_n
For the first 15 minutes of prayer this morning my mind just zoomed like those little cars going around a toy racetrack. I remember my Dad  and brother snapping those tracks together on Christmas morning, and I can still hear the sound of those little cars that never went quite fast enough without jumping off the little grooves.

After two years of being out in the elements in our Arizona room….yes, it has walls, but they are not made to keep out the cold or heat….Elaine moved herself back into her bedroom on Saturday.

It was a big victory and it surprised me how much better it made me feel. I think I needed it to happen as much as she did. And now that she is back inside, she marvels how she did it out there so long. In the summer she literally slept on ice packs. It was more bearable in winter, but the noise of the freeway kept her awake many nights.

The heating and cooling bill will go down now, since we aren’t keeping that door wide open. I just have to get my cat used to the fact that he doesn’t have free access now, that he has to use the cat door and go around. He made it known he wasn’t happy with that plan this morning by pooping right in the middle of the floor. He may not be able to speak but he can communicate in other ways.

It’s an apt reminder to me that in the midst of daily life, there is always some form of poop to deal with right along with the good stuff. We just have to handle it right.

I realized this morning that I haven’t participated in Ann’s One Thousand Gifts count for a long time. I have kept counting in my heart but not here, so today I measure out my gratitude once again. It won’t ever be enough for a God who has given us everything, but it’s a start.

#957 Elaine having a place of peace, a refuge once more, being able to get a good night’s rest again.

#958 Having the house smell good again. Elaine’s Mom, as most Alzheimer’s patients didn’t like to bathe and it was a battle every time.

#959 No more chinese fire drill at mealtimes, let the reader understand how difficult mealtimes are with Alzheimer’s patients.

#960 Leaving without worrying what Joyce might do at the house to endanger herself.

#961 Being able to make a noise in the kitchen again without her coming out distressed, Alzheimer’s patients find sudden noise disturbing.

#962 Being able to leave mail out again in the open without it being opened or moved.

#963 Knowing she is safe and getting good food in her new place.

#964 That Elaine can work again without the stress of having another full-time job at home.

#965 Being able to go on a vacation or weekend away again, both of us at once.

I pause unbelievingly as I realize we are on the cusp of Lent once again. I head there bringing my tears and my heart on His altar, thankful He no longer requires a living animal, but also knowing that it’s even harder to place my whole heart there. And that’s saying a lot coming from someone who doesn’t even like stepping on ants.

I leave you with two truths today to ponder………

Sometimes a veil of tears allows us to see God clearer. He is near to the brokenhearted.

Sometimes God is the only one Big enough to hold us. He has promised never to leave or forsake us.

A New Chapter

How Big is Your God?

It’s been a night and a day and another night. You tend to count those things when you are trying them on for size again after two years. We are both sucking in the oxygen of freedom like we can’t get enough. We have had two meals at the table without the stress of leaping up to do some kind of damage control. Of racing to the kitchen before she got out there first to try to clean up. Before perfectly good leftovers went down the garbage disposal. Or dirty dishes went back in the cupboard.

The carehome called yesterday and said her Mom tried to leave and was very restless. She insisted she wasn’t going to stay, but we knew that was coming. After church Elaine went and calmed her down. Her presence was reassuring. She told Elaine, “Well, I guess I will come back tomorrow and help them out because it’s obvious they need it.” I guess she thinks she is at work. Funny what the mind concocts when it has to.

We are enjoying putting the house to rights again. After an hour of intense scrubbing, Elaine has her bathroom back. She was cleaning it all along, otherwise the hard water stains would have done permanent damage. She says it feels like a luxury to have her own bathroom back. And yet the guilt still nips at her heart, even though she knows her Mom is in the best place she could possibly be now. And today, as she turned the corner to come home, she realized it was the first time she looked forward to coming home. And she feels guilt over that too.

I am waltzing around the house like Cinderella entertaining thoughts of the ball, classical music blaring from both radios. I will enjoy cleaning today. Soon, Elaine will be able to move out of the noise of the patio room and back into her room and enjoy a good night’s sleep again. Her first in two years.

And this morning, I am putting into practice what I have learned from my own dear Mom. A lesson she lives every day.

To count the joys and rest in God whether you are in the midst of trouble, or between troubles.

Because they will come, Jesus promised that. The world is full of them, but Jesus conquered that world of trouble when He rose from the grave and turned it right side up again. And while trouble follows me like cloud this morning, as it follows us all, I will be okay…….and so will you.

Because He says so, and we have a very big God.