Trusting the One Who Pours the Cup
#326 Trusting the One Who Pours the Cup
I’m back from a visit with my family, and that visit has been a roller coaster of emotion. My Dad (who has Alzheimer’s) was in the hospital for a week. He is now at a facility. He is in another world of preaching his love for the Father who always takes care of His children, and his love for the Brethren. “God loves you. And all the Brethren are praying for you. He always, always knows how to take care of his children. Keep looking up because God is looking down!” “God IS love, imagine that. He made love!” (Beautiful!) Most of the time he thinks that he is at a convention and shakes every person’s hand with a warm welcome, and “so nice to see you! God Bless you!” It is truly beautiful and a testimony to who he really is in Christ. Other times he is in a world of extreme confusion and agitation and hostility especially because he is incontinent and does not understand that he can’t just use the restroom on his own. He can become very rowdy and aggressive at these times, and so he is pretty heavily sedated.
My struggle has been to not resist his experience and the Doctors decisions. He has had some pretty strong negative reactions to medication. And yet the medication makes him more manageable. We have already lost a big portion of who my Dad is because of this disease. The added medication slurs his speech and prevents him from communicating and ‘preaching’ the love of God as often and as clearly as he was able to before. I found it hard to let this go. Until I meditated on these thoughts.
I realized that my struggle was really to accept the Cup that the Father has poured for him.
Psalm 27:1,4, The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear” The LORD is the strength of my life. I do not need to be afraid of any person, any Doctor's decision on my Father's behalf, any circumstance in his life or any of my spiritual family's life or my life....
“One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall see: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to mediate in His temple.” Psalm 27:4 "To behold the beauty of the Lord" is to behold the beauty of holiness, to have this image of His glory ever before the mind's eye as our inspiration, our light, our guide, our pattern, and our chief joy. Here indeed is the Christian's secret of a happy life--happy in the midst of whatever may come to him of affliction or pain or loss or perplexity or whatever experiences come through the checkered scenes of this present life...The language of their hearts is, "Oh, how love I thy law; it is my meditation all the day." R1914
The secret to a happy life in Christ is our focus, the ‘language of our heart’--what we speak and focus on within our affections and desires.
So I still stand for the highest good of my Dad, AND I have taken my focus off the Doctors and back to the beauty of my Holy Lord, asking and listening for HIS leadings and over-rulings. I realize that every step of my father’s decline is a step toward His Heavenly Home.
Let us pray that the Truth of His Vision and Grace will sink into our soul,
We can accept the cup of experience He has poured for ourselves and for those we love: Regardless of the appearance or the circumstance HE IS DEALING BOUNTIFULLY with us! Psalm 116:12-13, 5-7
I’m back from a visit with my family, and that visit has been a roller coaster of emotion. My Dad (who has Alzheimer’s) was in the hospital for a week. He is now at a facility. He is in another world of preaching his love for the Father who always takes care of His children, and his love for the Brethren. “God loves you. And all the Brethren are praying for you. He always, always knows how to take care of his children. Keep looking up because God is looking down!” “God IS love, imagine that. He made love!” (Beautiful!) Most of the time he thinks that he is at a convention and shakes every person’s hand with a warm welcome, and “so nice to see you! God Bless you!” It is truly beautiful and a testimony to who he really is in Christ. Other times he is in a world of extreme confusion and agitation and hostility especially because he is incontinent and does not understand that he can’t just use the restroom on his own. He can become very rowdy and aggressive at these times, and so he is pretty heavily sedated.
My struggle has been to not resist his experience and the Doctors decisions. He has had some pretty strong negative reactions to medication. And yet the medication makes him more manageable. We have already lost a big portion of who my Dad is because of this disease. The added medication slurs his speech and prevents him from communicating and ‘preaching’ the love of God as often and as clearly as he was able to before. I found it hard to let this go. Until I meditated on these thoughts.
I realized that my struggle was really to accept the Cup that the Father has poured for him.
Psalm 27:1,4, The Lord is my light and my salvation; Whom shall I fear” The LORD is the strength of my life. I do not need to be afraid of any person, any Doctor's decision on my Father's behalf, any circumstance in his life or any of my spiritual family's life or my life....
“One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall see: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to mediate in His temple.” Psalm 27:4 "To behold the beauty of the Lord" is to behold the beauty of holiness, to have this image of His glory ever before the mind's eye as our inspiration, our light, our guide, our pattern, and our chief joy. Here indeed is the Christian's secret of a happy life--happy in the midst of whatever may come to him of affliction or pain or loss or perplexity or whatever experiences come through the checkered scenes of this present life...The language of their hearts is, "Oh, how love I thy law; it is my meditation all the day." R1914
The secret to a happy life in Christ is our focus, the ‘language of our heart’--what we speak and focus on within our affections and desires.
So I still stand for the highest good of my Dad, AND I have taken my focus off the Doctors and back to the beauty of my Holy Lord, asking and listening for HIS leadings and over-rulings. I realize that every step of my father’s decline is a step toward His Heavenly Home.
Let us pray that the Truth of His Vision and Grace will sink into our soul,
We can accept the cup of experience He has poured for ourselves and for those we love: Regardless of the appearance or the circumstance HE IS DEALING BOUNTIFULLY with us! Psalm 116:12-13, 5-7
