The CEO of The Tender had advised me to get Andy to some specialized testing at the New Jersey Institute for Successful Aging. I made an appointment and took him on Wednesday afternoon. Andy spent about two hours with Dr. Libon, a doctor/professor who teaches at Rowan University. He is a doctor of geriatrics and teaches at the university. After Andy, Dr. Libon then spent another 30-40 minutes with me. It was a long afternoon. The doctor was very compassionate. I felt he really cared about us. He actually asked me how I was doing, then of course, I teared up. But he handed me a tissue and said he was sorry. He had also had family members with the same illnesses.
After we were finished, he wanted us to set up an appointment with a geriatrics psychiatrist and a social worker. Both of those appointments will be in early September. After those two appointments, the three of them will write up a report and let us know the results. The meeting with the social worker will mostly be for my benefit - to share possibilities that are available for me.
I have been reading through Be Still My Soul by Nancy Guthrie again. It's a compilation of short chapters by different authors on the subject of suffering and trials. This week I read, Dying Well, by D.A. Carson. He based his writing on Psalm 90 about the shortness of man's life...how our life is just 70 or 80 years, if we have the strength. He said that our current western culture is shocked when someone dies. It's hard to believe or accept. But why should it be? Everyone dies. No one is an exception.
He said that even when Christians get sick, people plead with God for their healing. Oh, it's not wrong to pray for healing because God is the Great Physician. But he suggests that perhaps a better way to pray for people who are ill would be: "Heavenly Father, we would love it if you would heal --. But if it is not your will to heal him, teach him to die well. Give him a joy of the Lord. Give him a heritage of godly faith, with one foot firmly planted in heaven, so that his wife and children will be stamped by it, and will look to Christ. We don't ask that he have an easy time, but ask that he be so full of grace, people will see Christ in him."
This really is our desire. When Andy was first diagnosed, his brother took him out to dinner and in the course of the conversation, Dan asked Andy what impact he thought this would have on his family. And Andy answered: "I taught them how to live, now I want to show them how to die."
Carson says "we are all under the sentence of death; we are all terminal cases. But the good news is that "when we pass through death, death dies! And the more a Christian lives in the consciousness of God's presence here, the easier it is to anticipate the unqualified delight that will be experienced in God's presence there. I'm so grateful that this life is not all there is. It's just a mist that appears for a little while then vanishes. But our life in heaven with our Lord and Savior is eternal, never ending.
Even in the darkness of the shadow of death, we have moments of beauty. We really are surrounded with the beauty of God's creation and people we love.
Yesterday in the cool of the day, I walked outside to check on my gardens. The roses of sharon are in full bloom. There was a butterfly enjoying them, too, but he was unwilling to pose for me. He was too busy flitting or burying himself in the flowers.
We took another trip to PA today, this time to visit with Christy and her family. I made a key lime cheesecake yesterday and took that along for our dessert. We had lunch together, then played a game with the whole family except for Andy and Claire and Aiden. And before we left, the children willingly honored my request to have a picture taken with all of them with Andy and me.
Well, the only way we were able to get some good pictures was to promise they could make funny faces at the end. So here is the proof that we kept our promise!
No comments:
Post a Comment