Belle
Those of you who knew details of our time taking care of my alzheimers stricken father may also know of my dread that I am walking down his same path. You'll laugh at me and tell me I'm just juggling too many balls. And I tell myself you're right, though I still dread, I still can't find good words, I still totally forget what I was doing a few minutes before unless I see the mess I was making on my way back through the room, I still can't remember meetings and names of just a few months ago.
That has added to my obsession of late about growing old and falling apart. (Oh, where is that sermon that Pastor Fisher or Diekema preached on growing old in the Lord, in the Lord's service. Oh, where is Grandma Douglas now? and how I'd like to watch and observe and learn from her and Craig and Collette. I don't think I will be like them because I am already concerned too much with myself. God help me.)
Sunday afternoon I had a discussion of the elderly and dying with a friend who once worked in a nursing home. On our way in to the prayer service at church I told Cal how obsessed I seem to be these days with the decay of age. By the end of the prayer service I prayed privately that God would take all this preoccupation away from my mind. I truly want to be like some of the old saints I knew in my youth, and not like the old people I see around me presently. These men and women were full of life and praise for God and wisdom and no show of vanity, but truly beautiful. Oh, I want to be like that, but I see myself down a different path.
After prayer as we turned to leave, I intended to speak with Jennifer Thompson, but had no spirit to talk with anyone else. Yet, I noticed the woman sitting behind us leaving her pew. I had noticed her when I walked in, noticed that I didn't know her. I remembered how after the morning service, when we sat in a strange (to us) place, I was convicted of how I didn't care to reach out to those I don't know, borne, I believe, in part, by my discouragement with "church" people in general (the visible church contrasted with the invisible church). The last thing I wanted to do was to talk to someone I didn't know. But God gave grace.
I met Belle Sutton, member for three years, "way past 60", living alone in a retirement community that she checked in to in hopes of being a missionary to all her jewish friends. She is jewish herself and works down in Pembroke Pines every week for a rabbi, hoping that one day he too will believe Jesus is the Messiah. She spoke glowingly of her daughter, Debbie, who was zealous to go to the missionfield, but put it aside to nurse her step-grandmother through her dying days for over a year. And now she still wants to go, but is finding funding hard to raise. She spoke of her sons, near whom she'd like to live, but figures they are busy with their own lives as well as their mothers-in-law. She spoke of her own discouragement in seeing all these old widows just dumped and forgotten, of her discouragement in not being able to have the ministry she'd hoped God was leading her to in the form of Bible studies with the ladies. She agreed bitterly with my friend's assessment that the crisis of the aging was just around the corner. She blamed the government. When I told her that I thought the Church should be the answer, she agreed, but blamed the Church for doing as good as nothing. When I told her that her Debbie was the Church, that I was the Church, that she was the Church, she smiled with the encouragement as perhaps she was realizing that it was an organic thing, led by our Lord, and not an organizational thing alone. She chiefly blamed the mothers who had trained their children so well to be independent and self-sufficient (self-centered?). And she commended us for setting an example (however meagre, eh?) of multi-generational living. May God teach us all how to honor His Name.
I found it very ironic that just as I was praying for God to take away all this preoccupation, instead He pushed my face into it. May I take my obssessive thoughts, and turn them to prayer. May I look at Christ alone and on His glorious work, not at the change and decay in all around I see. O thou who changest not, abide with me.
That has added to my obsession of late about growing old and falling apart. (Oh, where is that sermon that Pastor Fisher or Diekema preached on growing old in the Lord, in the Lord's service. Oh, where is Grandma Douglas now? and how I'd like to watch and observe and learn from her and Craig and Collette. I don't think I will be like them because I am already concerned too much with myself. God help me.)
Sunday afternoon I had a discussion of the elderly and dying with a friend who once worked in a nursing home. On our way in to the prayer service at church I told Cal how obsessed I seem to be these days with the decay of age. By the end of the prayer service I prayed privately that God would take all this preoccupation away from my mind. I truly want to be like some of the old saints I knew in my youth, and not like the old people I see around me presently. These men and women were full of life and praise for God and wisdom and no show of vanity, but truly beautiful. Oh, I want to be like that, but I see myself down a different path.
After prayer as we turned to leave, I intended to speak with Jennifer Thompson, but had no spirit to talk with anyone else. Yet, I noticed the woman sitting behind us leaving her pew. I had noticed her when I walked in, noticed that I didn't know her. I remembered how after the morning service, when we sat in a strange (to us) place, I was convicted of how I didn't care to reach out to those I don't know, borne, I believe, in part, by my discouragement with "church" people in general (the visible church contrasted with the invisible church). The last thing I wanted to do was to talk to someone I didn't know. But God gave grace.
I met Belle Sutton, member for three years, "way past 60", living alone in a retirement community that she checked in to in hopes of being a missionary to all her jewish friends. She is jewish herself and works down in Pembroke Pines every week for a rabbi, hoping that one day he too will believe Jesus is the Messiah. She spoke glowingly of her daughter, Debbie, who was zealous to go to the missionfield, but put it aside to nurse her step-grandmother through her dying days for over a year. And now she still wants to go, but is finding funding hard to raise. She spoke of her sons, near whom she'd like to live, but figures they are busy with their own lives as well as their mothers-in-law. She spoke of her own discouragement in seeing all these old widows just dumped and forgotten, of her discouragement in not being able to have the ministry she'd hoped God was leading her to in the form of Bible studies with the ladies. She agreed bitterly with my friend's assessment that the crisis of the aging was just around the corner. She blamed the government. When I told her that I thought the Church should be the answer, she agreed, but blamed the Church for doing as good as nothing. When I told her that her Debbie was the Church, that I was the Church, that she was the Church, she smiled with the encouragement as perhaps she was realizing that it was an organic thing, led by our Lord, and not an organizational thing alone. She chiefly blamed the mothers who had trained their children so well to be independent and self-sufficient (self-centered?). And she commended us for setting an example (however meagre, eh?) of multi-generational living. May God teach us all how to honor His Name.
I found it very ironic that just as I was praying for God to take away all this preoccupation, instead He pushed my face into it. May I take my obssessive thoughts, and turn them to prayer. May I look at Christ alone and on His glorious work, not at the change and decay in all around I see. O thou who changest not, abide with me.
posted by Compleat Mom at 5:58 PM
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