Finding Assurance When Memory is Fleeting
My family is no stranger to Alzheimer’s.
It dogged the final years of my grandmother and my mother, convincing each of them in their elder years that they were not home even as they were standing in houses they had lived in for decades.
My Dad’s sister was also affected, and following closely behind her, my Dad.
It was the version of the disease on Dad’s side of the family that most concerned both my sister and me as his symptoms this past summer rose to a crisis level, and he very suddenly became impossible to handle.
Over a matter of a couple of weeks, my Dad’s easy-going, kind ways were replaced by angry, foul-mouthed and even violent outbursts. He attacked his caregiver and shouted death threats at the top of his lungs. Dad was not a Christian, but he was always friendly and patient toward everyone – even those he didn’t particularly like.
I did not know this man at all.
And it occurred to me, not just that my sister and I are next in line for this disease, which has a significant hereditary component, but that it might be possible that in dementia, I might not just forget things. I might not just fail to recognize my home, or even my loved ones. I might not even just forget how to walk or lose my ability to put a sentence together.
It could actually be worse than all that.
What if I no longer know my Lord?
What if I disgrace His name? What if that profane girl who Jesus drew out of many waters, what if she came back?
These are terrifying thoughts.
But while the Bible does not have a section on Alzheimer’s, for me it has proven its perfect sufficiency to address all my fears.
First, by assuring me that my salvation is absolutely safe, absolutely solid. No matter what. Even if I can no longer conceive of God; if I forget every bit of Scripture and every promise that He makes to me. He is the author and finisher of my faith (Hebrews 12:2). There is no power on earth, no disease that can take me from Him. “Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation or trouble, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword…But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, or things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:35-39, emphasis mine)
Second, the Bible tells me that it is God who makes it possible for me to know Him, for me to remember Him. Jesus promised me that his Holy Spirit, who is in me, will bring to my mind remembrance of Him (John 14:26). “The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and remind you of all I said to you.” When I look at the concordance at the usage of the word “remind”, it states, “to place in the memory.”
The Bible assures me that the work of the Holy Spirit — the sanctification process that transforms — does not stop when a person gets sick, regardless of the kind of illness it is. It is the Lord who is in control – He is my Sovereign and He does not fail in His work when I am broken. In fact, His power is perfected in my weakness. (2 Cor 12:9). He is faithful to finish what He has begun in me (Philippians 1:6) and He is able to make me stand (Romans 14:4).
In fact, even if I tried to run from His Holy Spirit, I could not. In Psalm 139:7-10, the psalmist says, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend to heaven, You are there. If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there. If I take up the wings of the dawn, if I dwell in the remotest part of the sea, even there Your hand will lead me, and Your right hand will take hold of me.”
I think of believers who have gone before me, who have seemingly lost everything to dementia – who don’t remember where they are or recognize the faces of those around them, but, in hearing the first notes of a hymn will sing it out clearly; will recite familiar Bible verses and pray to the Lord regularly.
It seems that Scripture we long ago memorized, hymns we love, truths we have understood – these things seem to remain even when everything else fades, residing in some untouched place, so that “what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life” is not lost.
I read that Elisabeth Elliot suffered from Alzheimer’s for a decade before her death in 2015, losing her ability to speak in the end, but not her ability to preach by example, in accepting the disease as something that God allowed for her good, and in knowing that its arrival did not stymie His plans for her or his ministry through her.
I think of my mom, a lifelong church-goer and church choir member who nevertheless did not have a saving relationship with Christ until the last stage of Alzheimer’s, until she could no longer rely on her own ingenuity and resourcefulness. It was in Alzheimer’s last days that she found the personal, joyful meaning in psalms of praise and worship. It was in Alzheimer’s last days that she finally said yes to Christ, yes to eternal life, yes to His beautiful name. It seems as though, in knowing less and less about the world, there is capacity to know Him more and more.
