God Is With You and Me

 

Awhile back I read a book -- I've forgotten which book--with a quote that caught my eye.  I'll paraphrase and personalize that quote here:  "Slowly, with many lost days, I am recovering."  

"That's me," I thought. "I am recovering."

In January of 2020, my mother died after a 16 year journey through Alzheimer's disease. After Mom's death, I thought I would be ok.  After all, one of the first comforting words I heard from the Lord following Mom's diagnosis was this: "There will be life for you following your mother's Alzheimer's disease."  

Instead, I've navigated what is probably post traumatic stress from the turmoil of Mom's nursing home years. After 12 years of caring for her in our home, I was forced to advocate for her on an almost daily basis at the nursing home because she was a difficult patient.  Toward the end of her life, she became verbally abusive and, infrequently, combative.  The staff was young and inexperienced, but no one responds well to screamed accusations or to having to step out of the range of flailing fists (to my knowledge, the flailing fists occurance was a one time event-- but it made a deep impression on her caregivers).  Their solution would have been to medicate her and put her to bed.  I objected and offered instead a host of alternative interventions that were, for the most part, successful but hard won.  

And then she died.  I sat by her while she died.  The Lord was with us.  She had a comforting vision of Jesus as she passed.  She didn't suffer; she was not in pain.  Being the longtime Christian I am, one would think I would be just fine with the manner of her dying. 

Not so much.    

I'm damaged goods.  

I've continued to function adequately but my traitorous body, not having received the memo that all is well, began to break down. I have a bunch of weird auto-immune conditions that it would be too wearying for me (and certainly for you) to enumerate.  

And then I fell down. Literally.  Icy steps, lack of reasonable caution and ka-boom. Down I went.  I have suffered intermittent hip pain and what is probably bursitis instigated by the blow to the joint ever since. 

I haven't written about this season of recovery because, in the first place, I haven't recovered; I'm only recovering.  There has been an urge to just wait until I'm ok to analyze the process and then perhaps to write messages of comfort and hope to those still in the throes of caregiving. 

Instead, I do indeed have abundant comfort and hope, not from a place of wholeness and well being, but from a place of brokenness.  

The Lord has comforted me every day. Every single day. Through the wakefulness of the night watches, He has been with me.  Occasionally, ok, frequently, I've given way to fear.  At those times I have had to have the support of praying friends and, rarely, medication to see me through.  

All the bad things you hear about fear are true.  Satan lies us into a panic and the resultant fear blocks our ability to hear the Lord's voice. Panic attacks are no joke, and they do not come from a personal failure of faith but, I'm convinced, from a carefully orchestrated plan by the enemy. He loves to catch us alone. At times like that, one has to reach out for help, and it is no disgrace to ask one's friends to pray.  Pride has to go in order to make such a request, but...the exit of pride is a good thing.   

The comfort I have to offer is that God is with us and that He will lead us through whatever struggle we face.  It is important to continually reaffirm our love and trust in Him, even when, especially when, circumstances are uncertain and in our own understanding, we can see no particular reason that things should turn out well.  

Last night at about 3 am, the Lord personalized Jeremiah 29:11 for me.  This is a verse I've revisited so often that I am prone to miss the comfort of God's kindness and good intentions toward us that are woven into these words: "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

I obediently looked up the passage despite its familiarity, and I smiled, and reaffirmed my love and trust for the God who has not and will not leave me, not ever.  

And then my eyes fell on the verse just prior: "This is what the Lord says: 'When seventy years are completed...I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back...'"

I am seventy years old! I have received the promise. I reaffirm my trust in the Lord.  God is with me.  I am healing but not healed, recovering but not recovered, and the Lord is with me.  

And He is with you. He will never leave us or abandon us.  He will bring us through.