Sunday, November 30, 2008

Article in Banner

Mike was reading the Banner yesterday and ask me to share this poem with you all:

Psalm 139
Alzheimer's Version

Listen, Dad,
God sees you, he knows what's happened, he knows you.
He knows when you sit and when you sleep.
He knows your tangled thoughts; he knows them straight.
He knows when you're not here and where you are and when you're gone.
He knows your ways.
Before your words are lost before they get to your tongue, he knows what you were about to say, what you meant.
He knows you.

There's nowhere you can go, Dad, where God won't go with you, where God's Spirit won't comfort you, can't hold you.
As your light turns to night, even this darkness won't hide you.
God sees you clearly because dark is light to him.
He'll go with you.
And he thinks of you, Dad, often.
The number of times, the many ways God cares for you, if we tried to count them, would outnumber sand on a beach.
So you can rest easy, while we count.

We're counting Mom's tears.
We're counting the slights, the indignities, the affronts to your good pride.
We're counting the frayed edges, the missing pieces of your lost person.
But we'll get through this, Dad,
because when you awake - everyday and someday - you will be with him.
And someday we too will awake with him, with you.
-Richard J. De Waard

4 comments:

Alex said...

This is so beautiful. Thank you for sharing this. We are so blessed by such a good, loving God.

Ladene said...

Thank you Mike for sharing. I heard just this morning from a man who's wife has alzeihmers, that the many friends you had sort of forget you at this point, mainly because they don't know how to handle the situation. That is a beautiful tribute and I hope I can figure out how to copy it.

PEM Cell Hydrogen said...

Thanks for sharing guys. This really good.

Kerri said...

I read that in the Banner last week and I thought of Mike and his Dad right away ...glad that you shared it on your site.