One thing we cannot lose ............. Parables 768

November 27, 2002

The older I get, the more often my memory takes naps. Today, I thought about a lady I know who owns a quilt store in BC. I can see her face but cannot remember her name.

Forgetting names is bad enough, but this sleepy memory also forgets how to spell. This week, inconsistencies became enconsistancies. I’m thankful for spell-checkers and dictionaries!

But I wonder what will disappear from my head next. Will I try to phone my daughter and forget her number? Will I see my neighbors and forget where I met them? Will I drive downtown and forget how to get home?

The prospects of dementia are doubly frightening as I think about my mother’s decline due to Alzheimer’s disease. She could not remember her own face at times, even though she always remembered mine. Her confusion was often frustrating as she tried to say something and could not remember the words to describe her thoughts.

However, as I think of her dementia, I must also remind myself of two things. One, she was nearly always happy. And two, her relationship with God remained constant. There are some things that memory loss cannot take away.

Edward T. Welch, in his book “Blame it on the Brain?” says that the spirit and the mind are two different things. While one does have some influence on the other, a person with any type of mental disorder or brain injury is still able to hear God speak, understand spiritual matters, be joyful, and talk to God in prayer.

He uses Scripture to back up his theory. In 2 Corinthians 4, the Apostle Paul talks about physical decline. He says, “Therefore, we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.”

That verse and others like it show me that what happens to our body does not prevent God from speaking to our spirit. His Spirit communicates with our spirit, not just our minds.

Welch’s book illustrates with true stories. One is about a cranky man with Alzheimer’s who was bitter and impatient. He made many demands on his care giver daughter. Both were Christians. The daughter was frustrated, but decided to be patient and kind. She finally asked her dad to be less demanding. To her delight, he responded as she asked. His mind was not working but he could still repent from his ornery attitude and experience God’s cleansing power.

In another story, Welch tells of a woman whose dementia robbed her of the ability to remember and talk about much of anything. Mostly she communicated how much she hated God. Her care giving family could not leave her home by herself, so each Sunday they took her to church with them. One day on the way home, she said, “I need forgiveness for what I have done.” Her family explained once more that Jesus died for her sins and that forgiveness was available through faith in Him. The woman believed and received Christ as her Lord and Savior.
From then on, she talked about Jesus all the time, telling her friends and others about his love and forgiveness. Her mind was dying, but her spirit received new life.

Actually, my mother’s loss of memory was not so bad. She did not suffer anxiety. We all want that. She was able to laugh about it, another good thing. I’m sure she passed her days in contentment because the Lord was with her. He gave her that peace and good humor.

Just writing this reminds me of one more thing that dementia cannot take from anyone. Because He promised, “Lo, I am with you always,” we can lose our memory but we can never lose Jesus.

That seventh day . . . ............. Parables 708

March 20, 2001

My grandfather said, “I’ve never harvested any crops that I planted on a Sunday.” He was not a religious man but Grandpa noticed the positive results of his commitment to take one rest day in his busy work week.

The original idea of taking one day a week as a day of rest comes from the Bible. It was called the Sabbath and was an important part of Jewish life. In the Old Testament, the people were commanded to keep holy the sevenths day of the week (holy = set aside for God) but their Sabbath activities often became ritual.

In the New Testament, the early Christians interpreted the Old Testament Sabbath as a ‘type’ or shadow of their relationship to Christ and their ‘rest’ in His finished work of salvation. They changed that special day to the first day of the week, the day that Jesus rose from the dead. Instead of ritual, it became a lively expression of corporate worship and celebration.

Today, the traditional ‘rest’ days are not what they used to be. For those doing shift work, weekend days are the same as any other days. Changed hours for businesses add to the difficulty of consistently making one day a special day.

Besides the above logistics, many people may take a day or two off work to rest; however, they often fill those days of rest with activities that are just as strenuous as work.

To add to the complication of a modern Sabbath, several traditions and beliefs stress which day it should be. Some religious groups argue the day must be Saturday; others insist that it must be Sunday.

In an effort to solve this, others feel that the day of the week is not as important as the principle behind the Sabbath: God worked six days when He formed the world and everything in it, then after declaring it “good,” He rested. (This is not to say God was tired but that He ceased from working for a day.) This principle of work and rest is included in the Ten Commandments and repeated throughout the Old Testament.

Since our calendar was not yet invented, it is folly to argue which day of the week compares exactly to that seventh day. Instead, we need to look at God’s example and activities and apply them to our Sabbath rest. God worked six days doing something significant; He created a world and established its operational principles. After He was finished, He looked at it and said it was good.

I don’t know about everyone, but for me, it is a wonderful (and rare) week when I can look back and say all that I did was significant and good, but when I can, it seems easier to take a day off and rest.

This makes me wonder if our human drive for significance gets carried away and pushes us into a sense that we must work harder and longer to accomplish something good? And from what do we get our sense of significance? Does that fit with God’s plan for our lives?

Another part of this issue is that God never stopped working after He rested. That is, He continues to be active in His world. Simply put, a rest at the end of our week of work is also prior to the beginning of another work week. The Sabbath rest is practical; we can go refreshed and rested into the next part of our work cycle. This points to the principle behind the Sabbath. While it was initiated as a day set aside for God, Jesus pointed out that “man was not made for the Sabbath but the Sabbath was made for man.”

This time of rest is also for our good. While we can spend it in many ways, some of it should include time to reflect on the good of the past week. We can rest in the significance we have as children of God, and as we rest our bodies, we prepare for the week ahead.

Most important of all, if we include time apart from the normal distractions of life to focus our attention on the glory and grace of our God, He will renew our spirit and give us peace.