Bad Day
Today started out horribly. I left for my parent’s house at around 8:30am to give my mother her medications. She is 81 and ha advanced Alzheimer’s, and it’s getting worse. My 85 year old dad is her primary caretaker. It’s not a good situation, but there is a lot of politics involved in getting Mom into a nearby nursing home – my county only has three in total.
She has roughly 10 pills to take twice a day. This morning she only managed the Tylenol and aspirin before losing her grip on reality, and then getting very angry. She kicked me out. It was disturbing. Logic brain KNOWS it’s only the disease, but my heart had a hard time listening. I thought, if it’s bad on me, no wonder Dad is taking it so horribly.
Last week was their 59th anniversary. Really, how many people do you know happily married even 50 years? Not one separation, not one affair, not a single blot on their marriage at all. Dad put up a blow up photo of their wedding day. Mom looks SO beautiful. Dad looked over at the picture and said, “Where did she go?”
What Happens If God’s Not First?
On the way home, only the sheer power of prayer kept me from crying. I can’t cry and drive – I’ve only been driving a year, and I’m not even sure that’s a skill that ANYONE should try. The music on Spirit Radio was speaking to me as well. On Sunday morning, they play worship music. As I called on the Lord to help me through this, I was struck by something. My father has been falling apart since the beginning of the year, and why? Because he put my mom before everything else. And while that is touching, beautiful and romantic, the real truth is that God wants you to put HIM first.
Even our most important relationship is second to God, even if it’s ourselves. When we put ourselves, our spouses, our children, or anyone else before God, it shows. Not generally in readily apparent ways, either. My father, until the last year of pain and doubt, has always been a devout Christian. A liberal one, yes, and many of his views are driven by Christian values. He wasn’t always like this, he got what Christians call “saved” or “born again” when I was about 10 or 11. Even then, though, he put Mom first. I remember as a teen getting in trouble for talking back to “his wife”.
I love my husband more than any other person on this Earth, and he goes before anyone else, which is just a hair’s breadth ahead of the children we created together. (Unless the building’s on fire, though, because I can pick THEM up but not him.) Make no mistake, he is important. I’m slightly ahead of him in my own importance – just my basic needs, because it’s a lie to believe you can take care of your family if you’re malnourished, fatigued, and emotionally spent.
What Happens When God IS First
But up front? Lately, I’ve learned to put God there. God, here’s the car – I don’t have anything left to drive it, I’m exhausted, sick, broken-hearted, lame, diseased, flea-bitten and cranky. Then God does something really, REALLY weird.
HE DRIVES THE CAR.
And as if THAT weren’t enough, then he does something so completely over the top, it astounds you:
HE MAKES YOU FEEL WARM, LOVED, AND GOOD.
I realized that my father is STILL letting a woman who is mentally and physicall deteriorating drive the car, and it’s killing him. She can’t, of course, and his frustration turns out in anger, sorrow and indecision about vital matters.
Only By Putting God First Can You Truly Care For Others
After my parent’s house, I went to church. I was completely and utterly broken. I don’t think I’ve felt that spiritually spent in a long time. The sermon today was on forgiveness. Pastor Lenny was reiterating on John 21:15, as Jesus begins the first of 3 times that he asks Peter if he loves him. And while I got the point of the sermon, I suddenly saw those verses in a new light:
“Do you truly love me more than these?”
I see it as Jesus asking Peter if he loves God ABOVE ALL OTHERS. In other words, does he put God first? After Peter agrees, in the next line Christ asks Peter to take care of his sheep.
BECAUSE YOU CAN’T TAKE CARE OF ANYONE ELSE UNTIL YOU PUT GOD FIRST.
Heavy.