My Mother’s health is in significant long-term decline both
physically and mentally. My prayer for
her has become: “Lord, please do not let her body outlive her spirit.” This is not wishing for her death. This is asking that in her remaining days she
can hold meaning in life and those of us close to her can see that meaning too.
Recently I went to visit her. She was glad to see me and seemed to know
that June is my wife and Lia and Austin my children. She also thought perhaps I would take her
home when of course she was home in the retirement facility where she
lives. And when I said that she lived
there and I lived with June, Lia and Austin and would spend that night with
them she thought perhaps I would bring tem all there to spend the night. At one point she also introduced me as her
brother.
So yes some confusion but in the confusion a harmonious
theme. Her brother now passed away, her
grandchildren all somehow existing and close enough together that they
intertwined in her mind. She wanted to care
for us, provide for us because we all connect into her soul even though the
timeline that separates and categorizes memories was not in full function.
I reflected how God caries this quality. Not confusion but
of the ability to span time and hold past present and future in his heart.
And somehow mysteriously in my mother’s frailty I caught a
glimpse of the divine that my ordered rational mind often misses. God living outside of time yet intimately
connected to all everywhere where time and location is no barrier was reflected
in my Mothers fading mind; loose on the facts but strong on the love and
motherly care and joy of being with those she loves.
That day I saw her spirit and body gloriously reflecting a
divine quality as through a fog of frailty but unmistakably a heart of love
that knows no limits.
