Faith, Hope, Love, and Life

Faith, Hope, Love, and Life

Living with dementia is not exciting, at least not for me. Maybe you consider hunting for the remote for the umpteenth time exciting. Or discovering sweatpants in the silverware drawer. Or realizing you turned your back for literally one minute and now they’re gone. If so, this blog might be a bit too boring for you! But for me, starting to blog again is pretty exciting.

For the past 3-4 years, the world of writing has been dark for me. Not the “words are elusive so try harder” kind of thing but pitch black, silent darkness. People kindly suggest I just start putting words on paper, any story at all, and maybe it will come back. Tried that. It was as if God had taken the words away, and the joy of creating along with them. I was clearly done writing.

At the start of 2023, a dear friend suggested we do the Verse of the Day together (from Women of Prayer) and see what God was saying to us through the words of Scripture. I agreed. And I believe that starting that process is when God lifted the shade of darkness a tiny bit. If you know me personally, you know I have lots of words. ๐Ÿ™‚ Some people say, “To make a long story short…” but I say, “To make a short story long (with lots of extraneous details you have zero interest in)…” I’m an extroverted introvert. I NEED time alone. I NEED quiet. But this dementia kind of quiet is overkill. And I still have the desire to write. Just not fiction.

So here I am – wanting to search the Scriptures for hope amidst the darkness of life, to strengthen my faith, and to experience the light and love of God. But I need to share it with someone. Thanks for being that someone! Now, don’t expect perfectly edited, publishable posts. Most of it will be from the gut, an honest response to the verse or whatever the topic is. Join in with your unedited comments, perspective, and response.

Life can be wonderful, disappointing, beautiful, unexpected, exciting, boring. Life is hard. Let’s do it together.

Father God, Thank you for always being beside me, even when I refuse to look for you. When I choose to play the martyr, remind me that’s not who I am. Before I’m a writer, caregiver, mom, grandma, sister, friend, I am a CHILD OF GOD! While that doesn’t protect me from the bad and ugly parts of life, it means there will always be good parts as well. You went to the cross for me. Willingly. So of course you want what is best for me. Help me to lean into that truth, to look to you for guidance, answers, and hope. And most of all, let all that I do and say glorify you as these blog posts unfold. As Jeremiah said, Lord God who rules over all, I belong to you. (Je 15:16) In Jesus’ name, amen.

What’s something you struggle with in life?

But God!

But God!

My writing dreams, basically my day-to-day life, screeched to a stop with the diagnosis in early 2020. FTD. What in the world was that? I’d known my husband of nearly 40 years, newly retired from a job he’d loved, wasn’t himself, but I had no clue what was actually happening. Wasn’t FTD a flower delivery company back in the day?

Dementia. A relatively unknown form called frontotemporal degeneration. And also semantic aphasia. Didn’t even know what aphasia was. A swallowing issue? Seeing things? No, it’s a speech and communication issue. Semantic is the form that means the person knows how to put a sentence together, as they always have, but now it no longer makes sense to the listener. Comprehension of words spoken to them don’t compute. They become a confused prisoner in their own body with no understanding of the world around them. Think Bruce Willis. That’s my husband but without all the money. ๐Ÿ™‚

We walked the Alzheimer’s path with my mom and his, along with many friends whose parents were also affected. But to have it be your spouse in his early 60s – that was a whole new situation. In an unmistakable way, God made it absolutely clear that it was time to move; that our life in Plymouth was over. My family, along with numerous friends, clearly thought I’d lost my mind, but I KNEW it was what we needed to do. I knew.

So I (there was rarely a “we” anymore) got the house ready and sold it, as did our daughter (who was very pregnant with her fourth), and we all started a new life together out in the country, 30 minutes away. A beautiful spot of 4+ acres with a pond and lovely neighbors. A multi-generational home that provided the two of us with a private space in the lower level of the walkout. Our son and his growing family lived only 20 minutes away, making it the perfect location for all of us.

And here we’ve been for over 2.5 years. While many with an FTD spouse deal with disrupting, even frightening, behaviors, mine is mostly silent. Both long and short-term memory is gone. He speaks very little and even then I have no clue what he’s referring to. It couldn’t be a more lonely disease. As it has progressed (he’s now 69 and physically quite healthy), my day-to-day life has shrunk. And my writing dream evaporated. I no longer have the desire to write fiction. I’m living a story no one would believe if it were in book form! And that loss, of a lifelong dream, has been the hardest to accept.

It was my identity, who I was at my core. It was who people knew me to be – an aspiring author who shared uplifting stories of faith and hope. I was wandering in this quiet world (if having 4 children ages 9, 7, 5 and 2 living overhead is quiet!) with nothing to say, no make-believe worlds to write about, no new characters to get to know. I watched friends and family continue with their daily lives – going on trips, making new memories, writing more books, enjoying life, and struggled with the lack of purpose that comes with caregiving. Would I now just make the same meals day after day for someone who had little interest in engaging with me or the world? While dreading the changes that would invariably come?

It’s been a dark place. But God… No, that’s not strong enough. BUT GOD!!!

While my love for reading and writing fiction has waned, I still love to use words to express my world, give wings to my questions, and wrestle with the answers. Even in the midst of uncertainty, both in the present and looking toward the future, my faith has held me up, kept me moving forward, and provided the patience and grace I’ve desperately needed. I want to share my experience, my life lessons and God-moments to encourage others on their own journey. So I will still get to write, but with a new purpose and different words!

I hope you’ll join me on this undefined pathway that beckons us to question, share, discover and engage. I’m excited to start! Watch for more posts from “Faith, Hope, Love and Life.”

I really love this prayer by Emily Rose Massey:

Father God, I am struggling with disappointment. Help me to guard my heart against discouragement, discontentment, and complaining. Teach me how to find ways to praise You when my expectations are not met. I know I need to trust in Your sovereignty and lean upon Your ways over my own. Your grace is sufficient for me, and I thank You for always guiding me into truth and convicting my heart when I fall into the sin of grumbling and complaining, thinking that I know better than You. My lips long to praise Your great name. Thank You for Your love for me and for changing my heart to reflect Yours. I pray You would use these unmet expectations to transform me and strengthen my faith in You. In Jesusโ€™ name, amen.

The Death of a Dream . . . or not?

The Death of a Dream . . . or not?

All of my life, all I ever wanted to do was write. Actually, it’s pretty much all I did! I had stories to tell, characters I wanted to get to know and share with others, storylines that needed to be explored. And so I wrote – at home, on the bus, while working (yup, I got caught), into the wee hours of the night, early in the morning. I loved the art of writing longhand, even took a calligraphy class which I thoroughly enjoyed. I dreamed of becoming an author, known far and wide for writing amazing novels of love and faith (it was a dream, okay?!). Then life happened. I got married, we had two kids, I got super involved at our church. Still I wrote in secret, never sharing my dream with anyone outside a few select people.

Fast forward to age 50 when God nudged (pushed?) me into pursuing my dream. Along the journey I met wonderful people, made life-long friendships, and learned how to actually write a good novel. And in 2015, I published my first book! I can’t express the joy and shock of holding that first printed book. I did it! WE did it (me, God, and the myriad of people He put on my path).

In the four years that followed, I published a total of 6 full length novels and a handful of short stories. They were years of progress and frustration, excitement and fear, lots of money going out and not so much coming back in. But I continued to love writing, and the friends it gave me, and the sense of camaraderie as we rejoiced and commiserated along the way.

Then 2020 hit. Early that year, before we knew of covid or experienced its repercussions, an unexpected diagnosis changed everything. And I mean everything – my living situation, my dreams, any future plans we’d had. It was as if a huge metal door had slammed shut, leaving me in a dark room with only a tiny window and no way out. Literally everything about my life changed. I was stuck in a new world where I didn’t understand the language, didn’t like the food, and was becoming someone I didn’t like.

The dream was snuffed out.

But God…

Father in heaven, Sometimes we’re lost, searching for a way out of the darkness, the heaviness. We work hard to do our best but when things fall apart, we feel cheated, angry, lost. Life takes sudden turns and we find ourselves in a whole new situation with no clue how to navigate through it. But you are God Almighty. You know us better than we know ourselves. And your Word promises that you have only our best in mind. Teach us to trust you, to look into your Word for those promises and cling to them when we find ourselves tossed about by the difficulties of life. You will guide and lead those who choose to follow you. We want to follow. Thank you for your unending patience and unconditional love. Amen.