Category Archives: Perspective

Peaceful Tides

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Recently, my husband and I made a day trip to the beach. It had been too long, and a lot of loss had occurred in our lives since our last visit. I can tell you that getting my feet on the sand and back in the water was long overdue! The beach has always been a place of solace and comfort for me. It is where I feel most connected to myself, to nature, and to the One who created it all. I feel God’s Spirit all around, and He speaks to my heart in ways that bring new perspectives and realizations. It is where He soothes my broken heart or wraps His arms around me in my grief or trouble. I can stand there for hours just listening to the sound of the waves as they tumble onto the beach around me. We all have places like this, places that touch our hearts and still our souls long enough for the noise of this world to fade into the background so that we can hear or see what we NEED to hear or see.

This life can be so complicated and layered. There is so much going on around us all the time. It is a frenetic pace and, if we aren’t careful, everything within us takes on that pace and the chaos that comes with it. We get so used to the noise of living that we forget how to actually live. The endless distractions or things clamoring for our attention manage to absorb our time and energy. It becomes the “norm,” and we don’t even recognize it anymore. We have endless and continual information rushing at us like an unstoppable tidal wave of distractions, tearing up everything in its path. As people of faith, we can get so caught up in trying to keep up with the pace and then we wonder why we struggle to feel connected to our Father. I can’t help but think of how He tells us, “Be still and know that I am God” (Isaiah 46:10). If I want to truly know Him and be confident in who He is and how He moves, then I must become still.

Being still is not an easy thing to do these days. Not only do we struggle for time in our schedules to do so but becoming still actually stirs movement in other ways. As a child of God, it is almost impossible to sit quietly for very long before we start to reflect, and when we reflect, our spirits turn to the One who created us, redeemed us, and lives within us.  We hear the still, small voice within and sometimes it reveals things we need to change. Other times, it reveals truths we couldn’t see or hear in the cacophony of our daily lives.  Noise can drown out so much, and as our world continues to become faster and faster, it is so incredibly important to slow down so that we can truly hear, see, and feel those profound things that He desires for us to understand.

Standing on the sand recently, with the waves lapping around my feet, I found myself back in that old familiar place. I found the stillness in every fiber of my being and the world began to make sense again. I’m not saying that situations in my life suddenly changed, or griefs I’ve had were suddenly gone, but rather that my perspective lifted higher, and I could breathe again.  I love to stand and see what is revealed as the waves recede back into the sea. Beautiful shells or rocks appear, and they shimmer in the sunlight as it dances across their surface. Incredible sea creatures, different and colorful, stretch out into the warmth around them and provide a glimpse into the intricacies of God’s creation and the depth of his unending creativity. I don’t think twice about the fact the waves are constantly rolling back into the sea because there is beauty in what lies upon the sand as a result, things I may have never seen otherwise.  These moments center me, and it wasn’t until after we returned home that something struck a chord in my heart so strongly that it reverberated through my mind. 

There are times in life, certainly in mine, where I feel God’s presence all around me. Sometimes it comes through time spent in nature, with family, or in the embrace of a friend; sometimes it comes while standing with other believers, praising Him in song or sitting together as His family, spending time together with Him. But there are also times when it seems like maybe He’s not as near or that I have somehow lost my ability to hear Him, yet He has promised that He never leaves nor forsakes us. He is still with us as an endless sea of love that does not disappear, but rather ebbs and flows around us. There is a beautiful rhythm in the way He moves in our lives, sometimes seemingly nearer than others, but if we spend our entire life being so focused on watching the waves recede, we will never turn our vision to what is revealed when they do so. We will miss some of the very things our Father is trying to show us. He doesn’t recede to abandon; He recedes to reveal!

I am constantly amazed at how He speaks to us as His children. He finds ways to meet each one of us where we are, in whatever place we find ourselves at any given point in time. He knows exactly the language to speak that will open my heart, my ears, and my eyes so that I can find peace and understanding – not in having the answers, but in knowing that HE does. Those “languages” could be in images or scenes that come to mind, an impression of His voice within, the laughter and love of family or friends, or countless other things through which He speaks to us but make no mistake about this: If you are His child, He is speaking to you and your heart. The best way to hear Him is to be still and listen.

Whether you find yourself in times of sunshine or rain, abundance or want, joy or grief, remember you are never alone. Your Father, the One who loves you most and sacrificed Himself to make a way so that He could be with you again forever, is with you always. He knows exactly where you are and how to reach you…and He will never let you go.

Blessings!

A “180” Of Faith

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543899230565I realize we are quickly approaching Good Friday and Easter Sunday, but this year I’ve been unable to stop thinking about Palm Sunday.  Believe me, I love the reminder of the resurrection and what Jesus did so that I can be saved, but I’ve not paid a whole lot of attention to Palm Sunday until this year.  Maybe it’s because I’m in a strange season of life, trying to determine where or what God is tugging me toward, or maybe it’s because I just needed to see something to shift my perspective a little bit.

Less than a week before Jesus was betrayed, brutally beaten and crucified, He had come into Jerusalem to a grand reception!  It isn’t called the “Triumphal Entry” for nothing!  He was riding on a borrowed donkey’s colt, and the multitudes came out to greet Him.  They laid their cloaks before Him on the road and waived palm branches before Him, shouting, “Hosanna!  Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord” as He rode to the temple.  Just think of that sight!  Crowds hailing Him as King and publicly acknowledging Him as Messiah.  So what in the world happened that caused them to turn on Him so quickly and strongly?  How do you go from one extreme to the other in a matter of a few days?  The answer really lies in one word: Expectations.

Expectations are interesting things.  The dictionary defines “expectation” as a strong belief something will happen or to be the case.  Our expectations in life depend on the information we have been given and the way in which we interpret that information.  For example, I expect that my husband is going to do the yard work because he said he would do it.  I believe he will do it, but I also have my expectations of when it will happen and what it will include.  When he does finally go out to do the yard work, he decides not to weed the flowerbeds or sweep off the sidewalk, and I get upset.  Why?  Because he didn’t do things the way I believed they would be done.  543900368135There may be a good reason why he did things differently, but all I see is my unmet expectations. In my original conversation, all he said was that he was going to take care of the yard.  He did not reveal other details of what he planned to do, and I created additional expectations based on the way I would do things.  My expectation that the yard work would be done rests on believing what he told me.  My expectation of HOW it would be done rests in everything else I assumed from his statement.   Our expectations are colored by our past experiences, and they deeply affect our emotions.  When we expect something bad to happen and it doesn’t, we get excited and happy.  When we expect something good to happen and it doesn’t, we become upset, sad, depressed or even angry.  We’ve all experienced the reality of that roller coaster when we interpreted something differently, and suddenly our world is turned upside-down because something unexpected took place.

So back to Palm Sunday, it was a day filled with people who definitely had expectations!  Some lived in Jerusalem and some were traveling there for the Passover celebration.  They had read the prophesies of old and knew that God was coming to deliver them.  They were being oppressed by Roman rule, so when Jesus, their “King,” showed up, they were excited.  Deliverance was on the way!  They expected Him to ride in and destroy their enemies, deliver them and set up HIS kingdom.  They expected to see fire and fight in Him.  They expected a political leader.  They thought their day had finally come, so they exclaimed His praises as He rode through town.  This was a GREAT day for them, but then things started to change quickly.  They listened to things He was saying and when His message didn’t fit their expectations, they turned on Him.  He said His Kingdom wasn’t of this world (John 18:36).  He didn’t argue or even defend Himself when He faced His accusers (Matt 27:12-14).  He didn’t answer the charges or even respond to them.  By all standards, He appeared weak.  He certainly did NOT look like a King about to take over!  As a result, it must have confirmed (in the minds of many) that He was not the Messiah, and if He wasn’t the Messiah, then He was definitely a blasphemer as charged.  So in a matter of days, the shouts of the crowd went from “Hosanna” to “Crucify!”  When given a choice of who to release, they chose to put a convicted thief and murderer back into their community rather than someone who had only done good to others.  They were THAT convinced it was impossible He was who He claimed to be, because a King would not come as He came.  A King would not just lie down to be slaughtered.

The crowds that shouted Hosanna on Palm Sunday found themselves with serious unmet expectations.  The Messiah they longed for and believed in did not show up like they expected Him to, but He did show up, and He did deliver them, and also all of us.  They just couldn’t accept God had a plan far greater than their temporary political situation.  It was hard to understand after years, or generations, of expecting something different that this could actually be their Messiah, but God was at work on His master plan to change everything for humankind.  He was working things out for their good, even when they couldn’t see it or refused to see it.

543902470228How many times in our lives have we lived out our own personal “Holy Week?”  I have been in difficult situations where I was depending on the many promises of God.  I believe He knows and cares about what I’m going through, has the power to deliver me, and is working things out for my good.  I have shouted “Hosanna” in my expectations and perceptions of what He has said, but then He starts working things out differently than what I expected.  He starts doing or allowing things that I just don’t understand.  If we aren’t careful, we watch what’s happening and start to think that maybe He isn’t who we thought He was.  We look around and start getting angry that He isn’t doing more “smiting” of our enemies or my circumstances and is instead leaving you or me alone to fight for ourselves.  It doesn’t take long for us to think on these things before we end up angry because it seems He doesn’t care enough to take care of us.  In our own way, we go from shouting “Hosanna,” to shouting, “Crucify!”  We start letting our doubts, or even anger, that arises from unmet expectations to drive our perspective, and we can end up choosing to set free the worst of ourselves rather than to trust God knows what He is doing.

Life is hard.  We were never promised that it would be easy.  As a matter of fact, we are told repeatedly in the Bible that we will have trials and struggles, but God is always working for our good.  It’s just so incredibly hard to accept that as truth when our reality feels so much like the opposite.  Yes, God has the ability to come riding into our circumstances, proclaim Himself as King and destroy whatever or whoever is oppressing us, but we can’t see the big picture.  Sometimes He is working on a much grander and better plan for our deliverance than we can see.  Just because it doesn’t make sense to us, doesn’t mean God isn’t who He says He is, or doing what He said He would do.

There are many beautiful pictures in the Easter story – pictures of grace and mercy, of sacrifice and redemption – but this year my prayer is that we remember the crowds.  I pray we remember the way their unmet expectations of HOW God was going to deliver them caused such a drastic change in a matter of days. shutterstock_257497339 Unmet expectations can cause us to doubt what we know to be true.  When we hold so tightly to our version of what our deliverance should look like, or how it should come, we end up spending our lives looking for the next best solution.  We waste our energy trying to resolve it ourselves and end up sacrificing our peace and joy in the process.  Sometimes our deliverance comes through waiting.  Sometimes it comes through struggles.  And sometimes we are yelling “Crucify” at the very One who is delivering us – all because He isn’t doing it as we expected.

So look up, my friends, and I will look with you.  I will look to the cross and see not only love and redemption, but also a reminder that God is working a master plan for my good.  And when it seems like God is doing nothing, He is doing something exceedingly, abundantly above all I could ask or think.  I just need to stop shouting my plans at Him and trust in the fulfillment of His own.

Blessings and a very happy Easter to you all!

Focus On What You Already Have

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Christmas is upon us, and here I am sitting on the floor, late at night, with only the glow of the Christmas tree lights and the screen of my laptop illuminating the room.  It is quiet in my home, yet somehow music keeps rolling through my head.  It isn’t a song of the season, but rather the melodic cadence of a lifetime.  Maybe it’s the glow of the trees, or the silence around me, but moments like this have a way of pulling my gaze away from the noise and pace of everyday life and bringing my focus back to what really matters.

shutterstock_344854976As we continue through a season that is supposed to be filled with joy and love, I look around and see stress and frustration on the faces of people around me.  Drivers are out of control with anger; shoppers are pushing and shoving each other; some people are going into debt trying to meet their (or others’) expectations of gift-giving.  There are also some who are living with great losses and challenges that cause all the standard holiday activities to simply disappear into the background.  In a season that is so often labeled as “magical,” it becomes easy to feel everything but a sense of wonder.   Busyness and activity has a way of doing that before we even realize it.

I had a hard time this year thinking of things to put on my wish list for Christmas.  I honestly couldn’t think of a single thing for which I had a great desire.  It’s not that I have everything I want materially; it’s just that I found myself incredibly content for the first time in a long time.  Somehow in the midst of my incredibly difficult and distressing year filled with loss and change, I realized what I valued had shifted.  It was only when I sat staring at an empty Christmas list that I even recognized it.

It’s so easy to spend our lives focusing on what we don’t have or what we’ve lost.  This year my husband’s parents passed away just five days apart, and my own dad’s dementia escalated to the point where he had to move into a memory care community.  It was devastating for us all, and my mom had to sell their house to ensure dad could stay in his new community as long as possible, as most memory care facilities aren’t covered by insurance (don’t get me started on that).  Mom moved in with me and my husband, and we’ve been adjusting to our new rhythm as best we can.   Loss after loss, grief after grief with no end in sight.  Have you just ever had that kind of year?  If so, then you understand how quickly our perspective changes. All we see is loss, because loss is all that is visible to us.  Everywhere we look there is more grief and pain, more difficult circumstances, and more that is slipping (or has slipped) between our fingers.  It is a natural reaction, but it doesn’t remove the negative effect it can have on our lives.

shutterstock_711300070Dementia has a way of turning everything upside down.  One of the things I love about Teepa Snow, and her organization (www.teepasnow.com ), is that she continually stresses the importance of looking at what someone still has, instead of what they’ve lost.  Build and foster your relationship based on things they are still able to do instead of what you wish they could still do.  When you focus on the abilities someone still possesses, it frees you from the stress that comes from your skewed expectations.  You can expect all day long that your loved one with dementia still has the abilities they’ve always had, but you will just be frustrated and your relationship with that person will suffer.  It’s about living in the moment, taking them where they are and creating beautiful experiences for you both.  I can’t help but think how that concept applies in so many other ways in life.  When we try to build or foster relationships while continually focusing on what the other person has lost or is lacking, we are setting ourselves up for frustration and disappointment.  We will never be satisfied, because we will always be seeing the holes instead of the substance.  We keep trying to work with what isn’t there instead of what is.  What a frustrating endeavor, and even more so when the relationship we are struggling with is the one with ourselves.  It is impossible to build or maintain that internal relationship when we see nothing but what we’ve lost or can’t do anymore.   We can’t build a relationship with ourselves with that perspective, because it will always be skewed and will never be fulfilling.  From a spiritual standpoint, it becomes so easy to start blaming God when things haven’t gone right in our world, or at least what we think is “right,” and then our relationship with Him suffers also.  It’s a slippery slope for sure.

So many people talk about the art of letting go, and there is definitely something incredible about releasing things that hold you back.  But what about the art of holding on?  We spend a lot of time trying to identify our obstacles instead of our strengths.  We focus on what we need to purge from our lives instead of what we already have that needs to be fostered.  I remember a comedian once said about the Bible, “Everyone thinks the Bible is a book of don’ts, but it’s really a book of do-s.  And if we’d spend our time doing the do-s, we wouldn’t have time to do the don’ts.”  I heard that over 30 years ago, and it still sticks with me today just as strongly, because it also applies to how we look at ourselves and others.  If we would spend our time fostering (or appreciating) what we already have, it doesn’t leave much time or energy to focus on what we are lacking in skills, abilities, or even material possessions.  Ask yourself these questions: What do I have to work with? Do I have a special ability or skill?  Am I good at something?  What are those things?  If you ask people to name something they are good at, many (if not most) of them will say they don’t know.  Why?  Because we don’t stop to look at what we have; we look at what we don’t.  We see what we wish we were, wish we had, or wish we could do.  I’m not saying that we shouldn’t strive to be better people, become more skilled, get an education or go after something new.  And I’m certainly not saying you can’t change.  This year has been full of huge changes for me internally, and believe me, it is always possible to change.  It’s possible to be freed from things that chained you in the past, but you also need to focus on what you already possess.  Search your heart deeply for a moment, you know what they are.  They are those things you have forgotten as the cares of this world continually try to distract you from seeing your gifts.

Image-1Dealing with someone who has dementia has brought so many lessons for dealing with life in general.  When someone has dementia, you have to meet them where they are in order to develop and maintain a relationship with them.  My dad isn’t who he used to be, and yet he is still exactly who he always was.  I just have to find those things that he can still do and live in that place with him.  This relationship is not exactly as I wished or hoped it would be at this stage in both our lives, but it can still be something amazing.  Embracing, celebrating and being thankful for all he can still do, allows me to be open to riding this roller coaster with him instead of watching him ride alone.  It allows me to live life with him now, in this moment, instead of continually seeing nothing but what has faded into the fabric of our journey.  If we want to fully live, we must live in the NOW.

Work with what you have.  Meet people where they are.  Meet YOURSELF where you are.  There are so many other abilities you may have, but those are above and beyond the fact you have been gifted with life itself.  Even the ability to breathe and communicate are gifts.  Trust me, you can always do something and then work from there.  If you will start seeing and nurturing what you already have, you’ll be amazed at what else will suddenly appear.  When you are willing to meet a dementia patient where they are, and work with what they have, it’s AMAZING how that tightly closed shell opens up to reveal the pearls within.  I’ve seen it with my own eyes.  If we could just do that with ourselves, what greatness might we unlock?  What goals might we achieve?  What dreams might come true if we will just stop jumping ahead (or backwards) and look at what we’ve lost and simply develop what we still have?

shutterstock_341963009So as we celebrate this Christmas that is upon us, let us first remember the greatest gift God gave us by coming to earth to sacrifice Himself so we can have eternal life.  But let us also remember He didn’t have much from a material standpoint, but He always worked with what He had.  When He called others to join Him, He worked with what they had and compelled them to do the same.  Let us celebrate not just the life of Christ, but the life He wants for each of us.  He’s gifted every single one of us with abilities, even when we feel we don’t have anything on which we can build.  Stop for a moment.  Look within and stop focusing on what you’ve lost or wish you had.  Look deeply and start recognizing all you still have, every single thing you have or are able to do is a gift.  No matter your circumstances or what you might see as your deficiencies, you have way more “gifts” than you can imagine.

To quote the Grinch, “Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.”

Merry Christmas and may you all be blessed with moments in which to live a lifetime!

Disappointed By God?

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What a week! How many times have you reached the end of a weekend and though that to yourself?  This past week really had me up, down and sideways, which always makes me step back and look at things differently.

shutterstock_1196187574I’ve thought a lot this week about hoping and wishing for things.  There was a situation in my personal life that looked like it was going to work out better than we had expected, but then it just didn’t pan out the way we had hoped or wished.  It seems to be the way of life for us, and you’d think we would learn to not expect anything at all.  After all, it would be easier to not hope for anything and be pleasantly surprised, than it would be to think something is going to work out and have it fall through.  Does this sound like days, weeks, or even years you have experienced in your own life?  When I consider the possibility of abandoning hope or expectations that things will work out, it flies in the face of what I have believed.  I’ve always believed God is working everything out for my ultimate good, but what happens when you feel let down over and over until you stop asking for things?

There are a lot of televangelists who tell us we can ask for anything from our Heavenly Father, and I agree that’s true.  We have every right and privilege to ask, but we must remember that sometimes the answer is wait, and sometimes the answer is no.  Just because we ask for it, doesn’t mean it is best for us.  Sometimes what is best for us is something totally opposite of what we ask.  In theory, and as people of faith, we know this to be true but it can be so incredibly defeating and discouraging when it happens over and over.  It is certainly easy for me to start looking at things differently and question why I even ask in the first place.  I start becoming a spiritual “realist” and soon I’m not asking for anything anymore because I’d rather not be disappointed…again.

shutterstock_137512043When my situation came up this past week, it looked like God was doing something above and beyond for us, but then it didn’t happen.  Do you know what that made me think?  I started thinking “here we go again; God must be disappointed in us to dangle this out there and then yank it away.”  I was totally disappointed in God and it temporarily undermined my trust in Him.  Yep, my so‑called faith took a tumble into the abyss for a little while.  But why?  Because my perspective was out of whack on two points:

  1. Our initial problem had actually been resolved far better than we thought possible, and I was thrilled, but then came the possibility for even greater things. When those things didn’t happen, I developed “spiritual amnesia!”  I no longer felt the same gratitude and excitement when my initial prayers were answered. Once a possibility for more existed, it shifted my mindset into hoping and wishing for what I believed was greater or better.
  2. The possibility of greater things was something I attributed to my impression that God was going above and beyond, instead of realizing the enemy could be using this extra aspect to distract me from being grateful for already answered prayers. And it worked.

Once I began thinking negative thoughts about who God is and who I am as His child, everything started to tumble down the rabbit hole right behind it.  I didn’t stop with being disappointed over the present circumstance, but rather continued ruminating on every disappointing circumstance in my life – now or in the past.  I became overwhelmed and depressed.  I told myself I was going to become ambivalent in my prayers and requests to God.  You can imagine the thought process: “If I just ask for things but then don’t expect anything in the answer, I won’t be disappointed.”  I started thinking maybe that’s how God actually wants me to view things – unexpectant and ambivalent.  I have to admit, it was simply another depressing thought, because I couldn’t see past the darkness in which I was tumbling.   The truth is “unexpectant and ambivalent” are the opposite of “trust and certainty,” but in my darkness I could not tell the difference.

shutterstock_401236261Gratitude does not come easy in the storms of life.  When we start jumping to conclusions about what God is or isn’t doing in any given situation, instead of leaving things in His hands and trusting Him to do what is best for us, we often end up disappointed.  The majority of our issues, however, come from thinking that the “best” means the most lucrative or easiest.  Our definition of “good” and “bad” are based on what we can see with our own eyes, or ideas, but God has the vision and perspective of eternity and knows every aspect of our situations.   My uncle used to say, “We don’t really want to trust God to take care of us because what if He doesn’t take care of us like we want to be taken care of?”  I think that is more accurate than most of us would like to admit.  God doesn’t want us to get so conditioned by life that we lose our passion, joy and peace.  He doesn’t want us to ask Him for things and not care what the answer is.  He wants us to be content in the outcome of our requests as a result of understanding who He is and how much He loves us, not because we simply stopped expecting anything from Him.

Look, God knows we are human and that we are going to experience disappointment, hurt, betrayal and many other emotions.  He also knows it is our tendency to let it overwhelm us.  The shortest verse in the Bible is John 11:35 and it simply says, “Jesus wept.”  Lazarus had died and when Jesus got to the tomb and saw his sisters and other friends weeping, it moved Him to the point of tears as well.  Jesus knew He was going to raise Lazarus from the dead and yet He still wept.   He also understood that death here is temporary.  He knew, better than anyone, that life continues for His children in Heaven, and yet He still cried.  Why?  Because knowing the outcome of the story doesn’t mean you don’t cry at the sad parts.

shutterstock_563555992 As people of faith, we know that eventually everything works out for our good, but that doesn’t mean we won’t have to deal with tears, discouragement, anger or depression along the way.  What matters is how we keep walking in spite of it.  It doesn’t mean we won’t have times where we are so tired or discouraged that we curl up into a ball to try and catch our breath; what matters is what we do with that breath when it returns.  Will we use it to perpetuate the darkness around or within us, or will we lift our voice like Paul and Silas in prison and praise the One who loves us and has promised to take care of us?

For me, I don’t want to be blinded to all the good God is doing (or allowing) in my life because of my inability to let go of what I think is “best” for me or my loved ones.  I’m not saying it will be an easy thing to do or a perspective that will be easy to maintain.  I’m just saying, there is no other way to truly experience the peace that passes all understanding and to live the abundant life He offers us.  It’s time to change our definition of what “abundance” truly means.

Blessings!

Yesterday Once More

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shutterstock_1255117942Although I might be dating myself with that song-cue of a title, I want to share something very important with you about an issue that is affecting more and more of us, an issue that is leaving families hurt, lost and confused about what to do or where to turn.  This issue is the condition called Dementia, and it not only affects older people but people of all ages.  They are even finding new strains appearing in young children.  I know this is a bit of a departure from my normal posts, but it is one to which many of you can relate.

Dementia, in any form it manifests, is devastating.  I know first-hand, because my dad, who is the most brilliant man I ever knew, has now been walking this journey for a number of years.  As a result, so have the rest of us.  This disease doesn’t just affect the patient; it sinks its teeth into every relationship surrounding them and wreaks havoc in the lives of everyone who loves them.  If you had told me it was possible for my dad to struggle like I’ve seen him do in recent years, I would have told you that you were out of your mind.  Yet, here we are.  Some days it’s yesterday all over again, and other days it’s a brand new world.

Anyone who has been affected in one way or another by the devastating aspects of any form of dementia – either as patient or care partner- can relate to the myriad of challenges, frustrations and griefs that become a part of every day life.  I heard others talk about having a loved one with dementia, and my heart always went out to them, but the truth is that I had no clue about the depth of what they were walking through.  That all changed when this disease hit my own family.

golf non dadDementia is an umbrella term, under which fall a large number of different types of the disease.  Alzheimer’s, for example, is simply the most common type of dementia, but there is Lewy Body, Frontotemporal, Vascular Dementia, and a host of others.  Dementia is not a memory problem; it is brain failure.  Just like any other organ can fail, the brain can experience failure.  Where that failure first manifests itself will determine the functions that are the first to begin diminishing.  My dad did not start out with memory problems.  You could ask him about things and talk with him, never knowing there was a problem at all.  We did however start to notice he was starting to struggle with problem solving, or things involving processes or sequencing.   We saw the signs but never recognized them.  We just blamed it on not knowing technology or being tired and stressed.  Because he didn’t have any trouble with remembering people, events, stories or anything else, it never occurred to us in the beginning that he might have an actual issue going on.  We were wrong.

It wasn’t until things really got noticeable with Dad that I began researching dementia and what to do.  By God’s grace, I stumbled upon a 3-minute video of a woman named Teepa Snow, and I was captivated.  (Here is the video that started it all: Teepa – Communicating with a person with Dementia  ) Immediately I knew I was in over my head, but I also felt a huge relief that someone could make aspects of this disease so easy to understand, (and with a great sense of humor to boot).  I immersed myself in her videos and website (www.teepasnow.com).  I took webinars and attended a wonderful Care Partner Series that was a cross between a class and a support group…twice!  Teepa, and the way she imparts coping mechanisms and techniques in how to walk this journey, absolutely changed the trajectory of ours.  Did it stop the disease? Nope.  Did it change the grief and constant changes that come with brain failure?  Nope.  What it DID change, was greatly reducing the feeling of isolation that comes when your world shrinks as you care for a loved one with this disease.  What it changed was how we viewed this disease.  It provided ways for those of us who love Dad, to offer support for him, and each other, in ways we wouldn’t have known otherwise.

shutterstock_316304594As of right now, there has not been a single survivor of this disease.  Let that sink in for a moment.  We have found ways to mitigate some of the effects of it, but it still remains a 100% fatal condition.  That may sound harsh, but it is the reality.  There is no currently no cure.  We have done a great job in this country highlighting all kinds of diseases and raising money for research, but this disease falls through the cracks sometimes.  Maybe it’s because it is often a private battle that still contains a stigma that causes people to be afraid to discuss it openly.  Maybe it’s because people who would normally be out there raising money for the cause are far too busy just trying to survive from day to day as they care for their loved ones.  Whatever the reason, we need to get busy doing all we can to raise money for research, while raising awareness and educating others, so that we can reduce the stigma associated with this disease.

My Dad is still the most brilliant man I know, and every so often I get a glimpse of that same man during a visit or conversation with him.  Underneath the looping conversations or behavior is still an amazing, loving, funny, demanding, professional and successful man; it just takes a little more to see past the surface now.  Most people who encounter those with brain failure seem to focus so much on what the person has lost in functionality, but I agree with Teepa that we need to be focusing on what someone can still do!  When we focus on the skills and abilities that remain in a dementia patient, we are able to bring out the person they’ve always been.  Unfortunately, that also means letting go of what we expected or how we think things should be, and embrace what is right in front of us.  Now that I think about it, that’s not a bad way to live our lives anyway.

Blessings!

NOTE: I will be participating in the “Walk To End Alzheimer’s” on October 12, 2019 in our local community.  I have never been one to ask for financial support for a cause, but this one is near and dear to my heart, as it is may of yours as well.  If you can make a donation to join the fight for Alzheimer’s first survivor, it would be so appreciated.  It doesn’t matter if it is one dollar, it absolutely makes a difference!     Thank you! 

Deanna OLeary’s Walk to End Alzheimer’s Page