Faith

Faith Will Work Wonders

by Jeff Drinnan
11/04/17
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After a youth leader at the church took my group to a nursing home a long time ago, he advanced the idea that people of faith there are more coherent than those without faith.

For the past month or two, I've been camping out at a nursing home with my laptop and Christian reading materials by my friend, who has terminal brain cancer.

Having been with her for almost three years, I've found she does have some issues, but God helped her handle them. Until my friend Sandi became chronically tired, we went to Bible studies together and to church. But I continued to read the Bible and Christian materials such as Our Daily Bread to her and talked with her about the Lord.

Many people have been praying for us. Her roomates were senile, said to have dementia. One would spontaneously clap her hands and loudly blurt out things like "you know what I am" and "la la la la la la".  The other would regularly go on psychotic rants, most often starting with "Daddy daddy daddy daddy" followed by "no girls no girls" and "ewe baby baby baby". She'd play different parts, a high voice that sounded like Curly of The Three Stooges and, as if in a conversation, would answer in a lower, different kind of voice. Both of them would use variations of the "F" word, and Daddy Daddy Daddy Daddy got much louder when she did.

I don't think they learned those bad words after their "illness". A nurse said they it was their aging disease. I disagree.

We are now in a new room.

Sandi, although sometimes saying random, seemingly nonsensical things, is mostly coherent. In other nursing homes where she's been, and other places, I've noticed that older people of faith tend to have their wits about them. 

Unlike other patients here, she no longer has a craving for cancer sticks. During her first stay in a hospital, after being diagnosed with lung cancer that metastizied to the brain and liver in ER, a nurse caught her trying to catch a smoke in the bathroom.

After getting out of the hospital, and after other occasional hospital stays (where she tried to smoke), and after running out of money, she picked up butts from ashtrays and from the ground. Sandi stopped smoking more than a year ago. Now, without worldly cravings, she learned to accept her situation somewhat. And unlike other patients, she doesn't fight with the aides when they try to help her. Sandi's current state is somewhat like Jonah's time out in the whale.

Sandi said that Jesus is in her heart and she knows that God and I love her. Unlike one of her new roomates, she doesn't make excessive, constant demands. I think Sandi's faith did this for her.

Another example of faith at work is my grandmother in her waning years when she had Lou Gehrig's disease. Instead of dwelling on her illness, she asked me questions about my life. Grandmom was a strong, dedicated Christian, a Bible believing Baptist.

"being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." Philippians 1:6

Decades ago, after having walked away from the faith, I developed a cynical attitude on life. I had pent up anger, resentment, frustration. A pastor warned me that if I continued like that, I'd become a miserable, nasty old man when I got older.

About four years ago, I fell through an emotional black hole. It was a Crossroads, where I would eventually fall into oblivion, to destruction, or find a way out. I found a way out. I turned back to God.  "He lifted me out of the slimy  pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand." Psalm 40:2

After turning back to God, my outlook on life and my demeanor improved. I also learned to start considering others better than myself. I've put myself in Sandi's shoes. This is a reason I spend so much time with her in the nursing home.

Faith matters! Trust and obey God.

Jesus replied, “This is the most important: ‘Hear O Israel, the Lord our God is One Lord, and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.”… Mark 12: 29-31