Alzheimer's Steals History

My mother has Alzheimer's and is now living with us.  It's so sad to watch her memory deteriorate.  It's not just that she has trouble with short-term memory, she is forgetting our history.  I can't say to her, Hey mom, remember when...  Because she doesn't.  She remembers way back when she was a young girl, which I understand is typical of this disease.  Their long-term memory is intact for a long time.  It's the latter thing to go.  But she doesn't remember my childhood.  Or people we knew and loved during my lifetime.  She asks me if I remember when her daddy did this and that.  Well, her dad died before I was born.  So, No, I don't remember him doing any of those things.  Our conversations are related to something happening on TV or the weather, or something our dogs did that was cute.  But nothing about our history.  It's very sad.
What do you think?  Lets talk about it.

Little Things We Do

Every time I read about the little boy and his two fishes and five loaves, I think about the mother who made that little lunch for her son.  She made it for him so that he could go out and listen to this man they called Jesus.  I am positive she had made this very same little lunch for her son many, many times.  She had no idea this day the little routine lunch she put together would become a legacy in the history of Jesus’ miracles. 

Which makes me think…you knew that was coming!  How many little routine things do we do that could be offered to God, and made into something so much bigger than we could possibly imagine, things we never thought twice about.  A smile we offer to a person we pass on the street.  The pause you give to allow someone to move over in front of you on the street.  I’m a tall gal, so I always encounter short people in the grocery store struggling to reach something, and I will pull it down for them…no big deal…or was it?  Did God do something with that gesture?  I have no idea.  This side of eternity, I have no idea.  I hope someday I will be able to see what little things done in my life were used by God to bless others.  Until then, I try to remember the possibility. 

Let me know what you think?                                              

Remember, I’m not a pastor, just a Christian with a thought.

The Word of God is Like a Radish

Could we say the word of God is like a radish?  I picked the last of my radishes today and was cleaning them in the sink.  Some were too woody to eat and I threw them away, others were small, but edible so I cleaned them and kept them for the table.  I washed them and scrubbed the root free of dirt, thinking about how I keep the root on because … well, because my grandmother always kept the root on.  She did it so that the radish had a “handle” to pick it up by.  But I lopped off the green tops. 

It made me think of the word of God.  How many of us take the word of God the way our family has taken the word of God.  Do you leave the root on, or do you cut it off? So we throw away the inedible parts, or do we keep them in case somebody wants to eat it that way?  Do you take the word for face value, or do you interpret it and determine what it “really” means?  Do we ignore the passages that are inedible, or do we pray over them and meditate over them in order to receive what God wants us to receive from them?

Could the word of God be like a radish?  Depends on how you look at it, I suppose.  Let me know what you think?  Remember, I’m not a pastor, just a Christian with a thought.