Posted 10-21-19
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms
What a fellowship, what a joy divine,
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms!
What a blessedness, what a peace is mine,
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms!
Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms;
Leaning, leaning,
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.
O how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way,
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms!
O how bright the path grows from day to day,
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms!
What have I to dread, what have I to fear,
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms!
I have peace complete with my Lord so near,
Leaning on the Everlasting Arms!
As an FYI for all of our non-Missouri readers, our little Digital Cornbread Universe headquarters in my office in Springfield, Missouri, the home of Cashew Chicken, Bass Pro Shops, Brad Pitt and the Springfield Cardinals. One of the “features” of living here is climate change…daily….hourly 🙂 Our fluctuating weather is stunning. The one consistent feature of our weather: severe storms and last night was a great example. We had a middle-of-the-night tornado mini-outbreak after a pretty Sunday. In late October! A few years ago (depending on how you count them…) we had a large, damaging tornado in Branson on Leap Day in the middle of the stinkin’ winter. Sure we get tornadoes during “tornado season” in the spring, but we are a 12 month tornado season in many ways…
So, last night when most of us were envisioning dancing pre-Christmas sugar plums, we had tornado siren blaring in several neighboring communities. How do you get prepared when the siren is blasting your eardrums? You can’t. However…here are some outstanding tips for emergency preparedness from our friends at the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. Preparing in the context of caring for someone with dementia has unique twists and turns that you should consider before it happens. Where will you go in a disaster? Do you have durable medical equipment? Do you have pets? Is your loved one able to be quickly moved at all? I would be happy to help you in any way I can in this preparedness. Call, text, email, snail mail, or carrier pigeon me. 🙂 You matter very much!
As a matter of encouragement, I just want to discuss, briefly, the verse above that says “Leaning, leaning,
Safe and secure from all alarms; Leaning, leaning, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms.”
The alarm isn’t the problem in this verse, nor was it last night when the alarms were waking up 50,000 Ozarkers in the tornadoes. Being “safe and secure from all alarms” doesn’t imply the alarm is the problem at all. The alarm merely pointed out what the danger was. I realize this isn’t rocket surgery nor brain science, but we all need to hear it often as we consider dementia. Have you had problems doing mental tasks that used to come easily to you? Do you misplace keys, or words, or memories often? Have you noticed these or other “alarms” ringing loudly about a loved one? Acknowledging a problem and having a dementia conversation with the doctor because you hear an “alarm” doesn’t make it happen any more than the tornado siren caused last night’s wind damage. Here are some tips for having this conversation. If you know early enough, you can get on meds that extend the early stage of dementia (although it doesn’t extend the total duration of the disease) and you can made educated care plans with your family. We stalled around and missed the window for mom with those meds and I would give a million bucks to go back and have more times like it was back then.
Mom always loved the leaning song…we used to exaggeratedly lean on each other as we sang it…and laugh. Today she is still leaning on the Everlasting Arms today as she battles this disease! My biggest consolation in helping her is knowing that she “has nothing to dread nor fear” as she leans on a set of arms infinitely bigger and more secure than mine!
Update: It was a great weekend again for her…a far cry from the FB posts I listed over the weekend from last year at this time. Go back to the oldest articles I posted and read some of them. The storms were rough, but the arms were still stable, holding her through the mess. I look forward to seeing her tonight again.
#EndALZ
Here are a couple great little videos of my last visit with mom. 🙂
The alarm analogy is perfect! If you see or hear the alarm it doesn’t hurt to check it out!
Better than finding out the hard way that you should have. 🙂
Thanks 🙂