There is a mystery to belonging.

I’m usually reminded of this early on Sunday mornings. I bought one of those clock alarms with a CD player so you can wake up to the music of your choice rather than some annoying radio station or a loud buzzer.

We usually have a mix of tunes that begin our morning with a heart of worship, giving glory to God, which certainly helps our attitude as we start the day. The first one that comes on is an all-time favorite, Easter Song by Keith Green, celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

My wife, Zolla, and I always enjoy hearing this song as we awaken, but on Sunday mornings, it means a bit more. It begins a time together that is just our own, with no job to worry about, no dogs or cats to take care of, no television, no ESPN or SportsCenter, no friends, no family, no phone calls, no Facebook or internet–just my wife and I waking up together, talking and enjoying each other without distraction.

There’s a visceral sense of peace and belonging between us that no one else knows in the exact same way as we do during that time. And most often, it doesn’t matter if we had a big argument the night before. It doesn’t matter if I was an insensitive jerk or if she was critical or anxious.

When we hear Keith’s piano bursting through the web of our fitful dreams, we remember a mercy that comes renewed with the morning, and we remember that in our own little world when it’s just the two of us alone together, we get to experience the truest sense of unconditional acceptance and intimacy. It’s probably the time, more than any other, when I feel the most “married.”

But then, a few songs later, we hear the nuns of the Salzburg Abbey from the musical, The Sound of Music, invoking a glorious welcome to the industry and tasks of the day, and this is our reminder that it’s time for us to get out of bed if we’re going to make it to church on time. And so, we both groan for having to get up, but also for the loss of those fleeting moments.

Sure, we could set the alarm to go off earlier, which we have. Sure, I in particular could create more moments of quiet and intimacy, which I do and am working to get better at doing more. But for now, this has simply been our pattern, and because it’s this temporary moment of grace, it feels all the more precious to both of us.

My wife and I have been working with married couples for a number of years, and next week, I’ll be starting a new class on marriage at our local church. It was just an arbitrary matter of scheduling, but the class will begin the day after Easter, and so during this Holy Week I’m preparing for the class and have marriage on my mind as much as I have the suffering and resurrection of Christ.

But I wonder whether that’s really a coincidence. Marriage is perhaps my best daily example of the suffering and resurrection that Jesus experienced for our sakes. Paul said of him:

“I want to know Christ—to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.” – Philippians 3:10-11

We sometimes make jokes about the archaic phrasing in the Bible where Adam “knowing” his wife is simply a polite euphemism for sexual relations. And while it is perhaps just that, I think it also means a great deal more. Biblical knowing certainly goes beyond the cognitive knowledge of someone, and this is represented by the physical intimacy of marital sex, where the two become one in a mysterious one-flesh relationship.

But, anyone knows that there’s a lot more to a happy marriage than just sex. There’s intimacy in the realm of the intellect, of the emotions, and ultimately, in the realm of the spiritual. And, that, like marriage, is related to the way we can know Christ–a knowing, a communion, that can last for eternity.

Knowing Christ and this eternal sense of belonging, however, can only be reached through a crucifixion. In other words, the power of his Easter resurrection must be preceded by a participation in his suffering and death.

And so it is with marriage. When you get married, you can’t hide your selfishness any longer. It shows up in spades after you say your vows. And so the only way to truly have a lifelong marriage of happiness and true belonging, to truly know that other person physically, emotionally, spiritually and become one-flesh, you must die to that selfish desire to always go your own way.

My wife and I have felt this suffering, this not wanting to let go of our way of doing things, many times in our marriage. It hurts to let go of what I want. It feels like a death. I’ve spent ample time in mourning for the loss of my own way. But, no matter how justified I’ve felt in standing up for the conviction that I’m right, if it means that she and I end up not speaking to each other and living separately under the same roof, then all I ultimately feel in being right is dead right. Without her, I have no life that’s worth living. And so to know this type of resurrection life, I have to give myself up:

“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her…’For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church.” Ephesians 5:25,31-32

We all want to be accepted. We all want to belong. But most often, there is a price that must be paid for that acceptance. Christ paid that price 2,000 years ago so we as his church could know and belong to God, and through his power and guidance, my wife and I have the surreal opportunity to engage in this mystery of belonging in our marriage as well. In spite of all our weaknesses, she accepts me and I accept her.

So, it’s probably no accident that some of the most precious times in my marriage are heralded by a song about new life and the Easter resurrection. Not so coincidentally, it’s early on a Sunday morning when this mutual mercy is renewed with the dawn and I’m reminded of the price that was paid for my acceptance: both the price that is paid when my wife and I make the choice to put the needs of each other’s life above our own, and the price paid when Jesus placed the needs of the world above his right to life itself.

I don’t think there is a coincidence. There is a connection between marriage and the implications of Holy Week, except perhaps in their duration. With me and my wife, the celebration of our mutual acceptance so often occurs between Keith and the nuns, and it will last so long as we both shall live. With Christ and the church, the marriage celebration will never end.

(If you live near Statesville, North Carolina and would like to attend my marriage class, it begins next Monday, April 25th. Feel free to contact me or click HERE for more info.)

When I was very young and bursting with faith.

“There exists in most men a poet who died young, while the man survived.”
– Sainte-Beuve

It is one of the gifts of life to me that, no matter how old we are, we’re never far from the glory and imagery of childhood.

We, of course, spend perhaps a quarter of our life as children. Then, sometime soon after becoming adults (and sometimes before) many of us have children of our own and raise them into our middle years (and sometimes beyond). Our children then have children, and if we’re granted years beyond the average span, our greatness is measured by how many of their children surround us.

For people like me and my wife, we have the gift of nieces and nephews, the children of friends and extended family. So, unless we’re monks or highly reclusive, children and childhood are always around us.

Many of the reasons for this gift are obvious. Some are beyond our comprehension. Children infuse our decaying psyches with the pulse of renewal, of innocence and purity. Children give us hope. They shock us out of the mundane drone of anxious reality into living in the rapturous present–the unrestrained belly laugh; the melodious giggle; the faraway gaze; the bursting enthusiasm; the playful absorption. They remind us of guileless friendship and interdimensional joy. Their life’s purpose is seated in love and connection. Imagination isn’t a word they use. It’s the lens through which they see everything.

Scripture speaks often of the lessons of childhood. It speaks of what it means to be a child and what it means to grow up. But, I think, when we become adults, we often misinterpret these lessons. We exempt ourselves from the lessons of childhood because, as adults, we think we don’t need them any more. But, as spiritual children, no matter our age, we’re really never beyond needing them.

Certainly, most reading this have reached adulthood—we have jobs, we pay our taxes, we take out the trash. In the context of the physical world, we have reached maturity. We have left our father and mother and have a sense of sovereignty and autonomy over the physical universe.

But, what about the spiritual world? Are we likewise spiritual “grown-ups,” not needing a transcendent Father to protect us and help us make sense of things? Spiritually, no matter the assessment of our own maturity, shouldn’t we always remain the little child who can look with an unknowing awe and unrestrained dependence toward their daddy?

Perhaps we have grown spiritually in some areas, but unknowingly, are still children in others. Or, having grown some, perhaps we learned an important lesson as spiritual children, but in our seasoned maturity, we have forgotten what it was. God often calls us backward in order to move us forward.

As adults of this world, we live lives of responsibility and restraint. But, spiritually, we could stand to remember the uninhibited passion of childhood. And not just the passion to enjoy what’s good in life, but a passionate transparency to cry out to anyone who would listen when things are not so good.

Scripture does say that we shouldn’t remain children. That we should grow spiritually. But again, most of us never really have the chance to grow up because we won’t first regress into spiritual infancy. We think our goal in life should be to seek greatness. Control. Accomplishment. But, Christ said we should instead humble ourselves and seek him with all the dependence and frailty of a little child.

Growing up can be hard and there are some memories of youth we wouldn’t want to repeat. But we serve a God who makes all things new, and the Kingdom of Heaven is found, not in the security of adulthood, but in the precarious wonder of starting over with a remembered innocence.

So, whatever our age, any hope we might have for our future lies not just in being born again, but in growing up again. And, as we grow up again in him, we are called the “children of promise.”

“See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called children of God. And we are!…And, it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is…everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” — 1 John 3:1-3

No need to tell you where I was, but it was wonderful.

It was high summer and I was on vacation, visiting a location I had been many times before. The sun was setting, I was alone, standing on a quiet country road at the head of an expansive bean field. The crop was low and plush, and you could see all the way to the end. The fading sunlight had been replaced by a host of fireflies, pulsing their glow over the entire field with a soft, glorious caress. I could barely catch my breath for the reverence of the moment. It was a pocket of earth that had the strongest sense of peace, of innocence, a place where you could smell the organic fruit of pure and unadulterated life. For me, there was no other place like it on earth.

Now, there are many sunsets, bean fields, and fireflies to experience, so why was this place so special? It was because there was more there for me than just the physical environment. It wasn’t just a place. In my past history there, it was where I’d found a sense of place. it was also where I, long ago, had my first glimpse of true purpose in the world. And too, it was where I found a community of people who have changed who I am today. In that high summer evening, I was awed by the effect of more than just some natural environment. A sense of Place. People. Purpose. That’s what made it special.

This experience reminded me that, while we’re told to mind our Ps & Qs (an old idiom that calls us to always be on our best manners), perhaps our decorum would be better informed by spending time just on our Ps: Our sense of people, place, and purpose. Our Qs, whatever those may be, can come later.

Very often we get to enjoy just one or two of these Ps at any one time, and we float adrift through life, wondering what’s missing. Have you ever had a strong sense of people or community–i.e., a great marriage, kids, church, friends, etc.–but hated the place where you lived? Have you ever had a strong sense of people, maybe even loved where you lived, but then had no sense of purpose in life? We can go through all the combinations, but you get the picture. Life is at its best when we experience all three.

However, one obvious question is, if you can’t find all three, what do you do? Just live in discontent and anguish? Well, I think there are different ways to approach this:

A sense of people, place, and purpose can exist objectively for us. I.e., we could “stumble” upon it in our journey as I did once in the instance above. But, I had to visit the place on vacation to be reminded of it. I think very few of us experience all three Ps throughout our whole lives.

I do believe they can be pursued. You can search for a people who fit you, a place you adore, you can discover and refine your sense of purpose. Some of us may be missing them simply because we haven’t searched hard enough. But the search for all three, too, may be fleeting, always just around the corner, and we’re missing the life we were intended to live while on this endless search.

It’s possible sometimes to realize that they have in some sense been there all along, and we simply need to shift our perspective to see it. For instance, at the time of this writing, while I’m fairly happy, I’m a little disgruntled about living out my life’s purpose and wondering if I’m in the right place. But then I remember that I love my wife and she loves me. Our marriage is the most important sense of “people” or community I could ever have. Wherever we are, she always gives me a strong sense of place. In many ways, living with and loving her is my best sense of purpose. I’m sure those of you with kids, grandchildren, or good friends could say the same thing. So often we pursue the three Ps outside of those who love us, and we’re emptier for it.

In light of that, I think the most important place I need to focus my search and perspective concerning the three Ps is on God. I love God and he loves me. No matter where I hang my hat, he is with me. The three Ps aren’t fleeting with him. They are sustained first and foremost in my relationship with him. He is my truest sense of place. My dependence on him and his community of followers gives me a sense of people no matter where I am or what I’m doing. Serving him and those in need should always be my most enduring purpose. I can often lose focus of this and try to mind my Ps apart from God. But then, life makes no sense.

And, I know I need to infuse his divine nature into the people, place, and purpose of this world. Ultimately, that’s what made the three Ps I experienced above so special for me. Long ago, it was amidst that place of twilight, bean fields, and fireflies where I first had a sense that God was inviting me to be part of his people, where he’d called me to a spiritual purpose that was beyond my nearsighted view of life. It was there where his touch on creation was an overwhelming reminder of his security and significance over my life. There, like no other place on earth, I felt truly at home and had a glimpse of my eternal home.

Where are you? Who are you with? Why are you here? I hope you are on a journey to answering these questions with some sense of satisfaction. If not, start your search for all three. Pursue them. Pray for them. Step back and look for the ways they may have been there all along. Adjust your perspective. Pursue the most organic source of your people, place, and purpose in God, and in Jesus, his Son.

Are you minding your Ps? It’s not just about good manners. Life doesn’t mean much without them.

(This is a feature I wrote for Good News Magazine back in 2000)

How Alzheimer’s other victims have loved, persevered and come to terms with one of life’s most dehumanizing diseases.

Love never fails. But . . . whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (1 Corinthians 13:8,12—NKJV)

The greatest of these is love. When knowledge vanishes, or faith and hope are tested, love can fill the depths of our need, coloring our perspective with the hue of what’s important, what is lasting. And certainly, love can give us reason to live when all else falls away.

Alzheimer’s disease is a vile falling away. It strips a person of their personhood: their sense of knowing, of connecting with their world and with other human beings through words, communication, deliberate emotion, and awareness.

But, equally tragic, it plays the sadistic trick of torturing not just the victims of the disease, but those who love them as well. Of course, all serious illnesses have this effect. But, unlike other diseases which attack the body, taking a loved one far too soon, Alzheimer’s assault on the mind often lingers, ever slowly robbing families of a loved one’s essence while typically keeping the rest of the body in tact for years.

So, the story of Alzheimer’s must certainly include the families, the caregivers, as well as the victim. And, understandably, the conclusions drawn by loved ones in the face of such tragedies are most passionately held, and often differ, depending on the effects of the disease and the personalities, backgrounds and beliefs of all those involved. But the one constant, at least in the following distinct testimonies, is the greatest of these. Here are three stories:

BETTY

“My whole life, I’ve called her Mama. Now, I just call her Mom,” my wife, Zolla, realized recently. Her own mother, Betty Wadsworth, 76, was only a few years ago diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.

Zolla’s sister, Joyce Striclyn, living close to her parents, is one of their mother’s primary caregivers, along with another sister, Noretta, with various other family members pitching in, eight children in all.

Joyce describes the day her mom was diagnosed: “[The doctor] asked her if she had any children. She hummed around a little bit, then decided, yes, she had some children. And, that day, she was married. He asked her to name her children, and she looked over at me and said, ‘There’s one. Ask her.’”

Sweet, playful remarks have been a trademark of Betty’s life long before they were mixed with such a bittersweet irony. Sometimes Alzheimer’s can alter someone’s personality as well as their intellectual prowess. In Betty’s case, however, while the disease has increasingly diminished her mental confidence to articulate or define what’s important to her, her endearing, gentle personality to this point has remained untouched.

“We’ve learned things from Mom,” says Joyce. “We have learned that, even when she doesn’t have her mind, she is still sweet and kind and loving. I don’t know that I’d pass that test.”

And yet her children increasingly mourn the loss of a woman who is still very much alive. Not having the closest emotional bond with their mother, Joyce describes how she bonded with her children rather through mutual experiences, and how they are sorely missed:

“She would always do fun things with us: projects, quilting, cooking,” she says. “I grieve her loss of ability to cook and to be artistic, her love of gardening, her creativity as an expression of herself.”

One talent that does remain, however, is Betty’s devotional adoration for God. Where her vocabulary has diminished in most other areas of life, Betty can still sing the words to the older church hymns from beginning to end with only occasional difficulty.

“She likes being in church,” remarks Joyce. “Although, it makes her nervous when people come up to her and say, ‘Hi, Betty,’ because she doesn’t know who they are. And, then she gets real close and sticks real close to me. But, when she sees her sister, Nora Belle, she’ll literally run across the room and give her a kiss.”

As with the hymns of God are Betty’s childhood memories. Forgetting the names of most everyone else around her, Betty can still name her brothers and sisters. Like many stricken with Alzheimer’s, Betty’s short-term memory has been replaced by an awareness of long ago, when she was perhaps bursting with the potential of youth, and life was more simple and secure.

Her only remaining and closest sister, Nora Belle, describes a time a few years ago when she sat down and tried to read the Bible with Betty, and felt a painful difference. “It was terribly difficult. I recall [in childhood] that I would sit next to her in Sunday School because I was afraid that I wouldn’t know a word when they called on me to read out of the Bible. So, I would sit next to her because she would always tell me the word.”

“And I thought when we were sitting there trying to read at the table that day—‘this is strange. I’m telling her.’ And, that never, never occurred. She was always the one helping me.”

Alzheimer’s is frequently shown to be a genetic disease, so Nora Belle is relieved not to have yet seen any sign of it in her own life. But Betty’s illness has been the next in line of many past such cases in their family, including their mother, aunt and grandfather. So, for Betty’s own children, my wife included, there is the added burden of not only seeing the mother they knew fading away, but perhaps fearing for their own futures as well.

“We are so fragile and we don’t realize it,” muses Joyce. “We think God has given us this brain and the power to think and the power to create and the power to choose and we often think we’re God. But, we still are fragile people and we are totally dependent on God. And our ability to reason, to choose, to think is all a gift from Him.”

And yet with my wife’s mother, despite the stark symbolism of her illness, much of the core of what has made her so lovable still holds fast. Not all families with Alzheimer’s are allowed this reprieve, so understandably, not all will draw the same spiritual solace. But, in the midst of their loss, God’s redeeming hand hasn’t been hard to find.

Says Joyce: “I think that having mom in my home helped me to conclude that you can’t determine when it’s time for somebody else to die. God can use people in all sorts of physical situations. He can use those people to teach the lessons to his children that he wants to teach. So, mom can still teach us things in her state of mind. Although, I would not want to be her, I can learn from her. She’s good all the way through.”

FRANCES

“I think our reflex as Christians is to look for the good in all things, but in so doing we often miss the point,” says Daniel Dickerson. “The point of suffering is not to find the beauty in it—the point of suffering is to learn to put your trust in, and rely completely on God. God is more important than our pain, and he is infinitely more able to take care of us during difficult situations than we can imagine.”

In her 9th year since showing the first signs of Alzheimer’s, Daniel’s mother, Frances Dickerson, was home alone with her husband in Tucson, Arizona when a powerful storm blew through town. Once described as a pleasant, upbeat, even bubbly woman, Alzheimer’s had beaten her kind demeanor into submission, leaving her far more anxious and fearful of the unknown, which for her had become nearly everything.

The storm came hard that night and sent her into a panic. What was worse, it had been some time since she either knew or trusted her husband of 35 years—he had become “that man” who would seemingly badger her, invade her privacy and make her do things she simply didn’t want to do.

Physically still a powerful woman, Frances took a kitchen knife, pacing around the house as she was often prone to do, assuming various defensive postures. “She didn’t recognize my dad, and she felt threatened,” says Daniel. “It was then that we realized we wouldn’t be able to take care of her for much longer. We were beginning to be at risk.”

In a few days, says Daniel, they were forced to place her in the local hospital’s secure wing. “We walked in the door and she knew full well where we were and why. She clung to my arm fiercely and trembled as people walked by. We made our way back to the secure area, and when the door locked behind us she cried and clung to me and begged us with what little words she could speak. It was the most horrible thing I have ever done. I wanted to die that day.”

Frances was only in her early 50s when she was released from her position as an intensive care nurse for what was then called ‘mental incompetence.’ It’s extremely rare that Alzheimer’s would strike so early in life—most who fall victim start showing signs in their early to mid-60s or later. So often, the physical frailty of age coincides with the mental decay.

However, Frances’ physical appearance and ability remained strong for many years from the start of her mental decline, which frequently made her difficult to handle. As the dementia progressed, she would often escape from her family’s grasp, later forcing them to place an ID bracelet on her wrist so they could track her.

“Her vocabulary was almost completely gone at this point,” remembers Daniel, “and she no longer sang in the mornings. Instead, she whistled a constant, aimless melody. She whistled constantly. Whenever you didn’t hear the airy, aimless tune of her whistle, you knew something was up—she had probably just escaped.”

In a later incident, Frances turned up missing for days, only to be found with blisters on her feet almost 30 miles away from where she started. Still hoping to care for her themselves, her family had to place deadbolts on the doors to keep her from fleeing.

Then, after the incident with the knife, they were finally forced to give up on a 9-year commitment to keep her at home with the people who loved her most. In the cold halls of the secure nursing home, she paced and paced, often to the point of collapsing, like so many in her state, simply trying to find her way home. Her physical health final succumbing, Frances died 5 years later, only a few days after her 40th wedding anniversary.

The early attack of the disease and the painful change in Frances’ demeanor made the 14-year journey especially tragic for Daniel, his father, and other siblings. To them, they’d been cheated of knowing and loving a mother who had so much life and potential, and whose time had just not yet come.

Says Daniel: “One of the more troubling parts of Alzheimer’s for me is the idea that our minds are made up of chemicals. . . I usually think of my personality and my mind as being something fundamental and unchanging about me. It’s who I am, I would say, and they can’t take that away from me. Well, in this world, they can. . . I can only hope [my mother] wasn’t even here during the last 5 years of her incarceration on earth.”

“But, when I reflect on my experiences taking care of my mother for 9 years, I realize how much of God’s strength and grace I experienced. I should have been crushed, but I came through fine. More than fine, even. I look back, and I am amazed at the strength I felt, and the peace of mind, even during some of the tough times.”

“Alzheimer’s is a horrible, dehumanizing illness, and I may never understand why my mother was struck with it, but I can say with certainty that God is a powerful refuge, and he can bear all of my burdens with ease. And I’ve learned to trust in him.”

MURIEL

In 1990, Robertson McQuilkin retired from his 22-year presidency at a prominent Bible College to care for his wife, Muriel, who had been stricken with Alzheimer’s several years before.

Although Muriel suffered from most of the typical symptoms of the disease, she somehow still knew and was fiercely dependent on the man she married. So, McQuilkin gave up his career to devote his life to caring for his progressively fading love. Today, along with his daughter, he cares for her still, 23 years now from the onset of her illness.

In his 1998 book, A Promise Kept, McQuilkin writes: “It was no great effort to do the loving thing for one who was altogether lovable. My imprisonment turned out to be a delightful liberation to love more fully than I have ever known…Twenty summers ago, Muriel and I began our journey into the twilight. It’s midnight now, at least for her. Sometimes I wonder when dawn will break. Even the dreaded Alzheimer’s disease isn’t supposed to attack so early and torment so long. Yet, in her silent world Muriel is so content, so lovable, I sometimes pray, ‘Please Lord, could you let me keep her a little longer?’”*

*****

The human tragedies that come from living in a fallen world are countless. In the face of a tragedy such as Alzheimer’s, a loved one’s faith in what is just, what is good, is often stretched beyond the frame of what a loving God could ever allow.

The disease is never kind, but sometimes in the midst of its wretchedness there are sparks of redemptive light, teaching us lessons about God’s provision in spite of such worldly darkness.

Perhaps the greatest lessons learned are how so few things in this life are incorruptible, and how God is their only source. And through all the suffering, we pray for those who have left us, whether still in the body or not, and we survive, knowing that we have loved them well with the love of God—the greatest of these.

* Excerpt used with permission from Tyndale Publishing.