04-03-2019

So tired.

Last week we went to church and sang “Great Is Thy Faithfulness”.  As he began to talk to us, the pastor wanted three people to tell of God’s faithfulness in their lives. I always jump up at this kind of invitation. It’s not that I have it in mind to say a particular thing, but I know God has been faithful and I should say so. I stumbled around a bit, explaining the difficulty of moving to a new area and then getting word that my husband has dementia.  It has had its depressing moments, circumstances that we weren’t happy about, but we go through each day, able to find the goodness of God toward us.  I said something to that effect.

As I finished, the husband raised his hand and said, in his “Lewy voice”, “and I wouldn’t have it any other way”.  I know what he meant by that. We have talked it over numerous times.  He has felt an actual friendship with Jesus and had dreams (I think he would call them that) where he’s been given words to think about and investigate. Jesus knows he’s a scientist and loves to figure things out, so he gives the husband clues, that lead to more clues.  If he gets stuck and doesn’t know what comes next, he asks and waits until Jesus tells him more. He’s very touched by this friendship and gets emotional relating the details.

It’s never been his choice to have this diagnosis, of course, but knowing that God has allowed it for a reason, he is accepting it. The resulting relationship with God, and with friends and relatives, has enriched the experience beyond what he would have expected in life. In that sense, he really wouldn’t have wanted it any other way, because it probably wouldn’t have happened any other way. God knows how to make happen what we need to have happen.