Posted 11/19/18
Mom was stressed out today. A visitor came to talk to one of mom’s friends and mom got confused and frustrated by the broken routine… again. The next hour or so was spent speed-pacing the hallway and crying, trying to find my stepdad. By “normal standards”, it wasn’t a big deal. My stepdad came early and got her settled down. She was pretty chill by the time I got there.
The familiar is soooo important to us and specifically to our rest. Our brain loves comfortable like our foot loves a broken-in loafer. My first thought is to wonder why we fight for the inverse? We yearn, we crave, we mortgage our future for new experiences that confuse, frustrate and ultimately reprogram our brains. There must be a huge, if illogical, intrinsic value to conquering (or at least enduring) the unfamiliar and converting it to the near mundane. We stretch our brains with scary movies, with riding rollers coasters, with eating exotic foods until they bore us, then we shoot higher. Much of “growing” in life is expanding the pool of what is familiar. Maybe the shot of adrenaline/endorphins/medical word stuff we get when we learn in this way rapid forces new/ comfortable pathways that give us an even more pleasing dose of chemical that lets our brain relax more often? Is that the goal?
Given my premise, is resting in Christ (Psalm 55:6; Ex.33:14, many other verses, often in the Gospels) facilitated through the rewiring (renewing) of the brain as we move back and forth from the peaks and valleys of the human experience and see that God is truly there for us and is working for our good (Romans 8:28-30)? The fruit of enduring hardship can probably be scientifically shown in the brain somehow. Is delighting in weakness (2 Cor 12:9-10) partially just trusting that your brain will actually have some rest one way or another (by becoming relaxed through newly created pathways or by going to heaven?)
Alzheimer’s messes up our rest. Our capacity to burrow new pathways is minimal when the brain bandit sabotages the gray matter. Sure we can get temporary “rest ” through meds, but even the seemingly “most Christian” of the Sweet 17 are constantly struggling. Outwardly, rest seems unattainable to many of them. Inwardly, my hope is that these experiences and challenges somehow make heaven even more sweet in contrast. It is also a good reminder to seek to learn and grow from our trials while new pathways can be made. John Piper’s books “Don’t Waste Your Life” and the similar “Don’t Waste Your Cancer” come to mind as somewhat tangential discussions.
Thank you for enduring my rant. Pray for an end for this disease yet for us to rest knowing His will is perfect and He loves us perfectly even through these hardships.
Happy Thanksgiving with mom and family! Thankful for all of the good times and the good that comes out of the not good. (Romans 8:28-30)
#EndALZ
