It has been a grey and heartsore kind of day. This afternoon, we went to visit my grandma in the home where she now lives. She's a shell of who she used to be, and it breaks my heart to see her and the women she is surrounded by. Dementia is vicious and insidious. It steals the people you love from before your eyes, leaving behind a ghost of who they used to be. My grandma used to be capable and loving, and a voracious reader. She loved cooking and baking, and I was so looking forward to having her share the recipes and secrets that had to wait until I was old enough. Now, she cannot hold a cup of tea in her hands without someone supporting her, and even then, she cannot remember what she is supposed to do with it. She won't eat or drink of her own volition, because in her mind, she has only just eaten. At one point today, one of the women got too hot and stripped off her shirt and bra. I looked around for a carer, and another woman told me off for looking around because she wasn't talking about me. The confusion and hopelessness are palpable.
I feel so bruised and vulnerable. It seems that 2012 has thoroughly kicked my butt. My heart has been broken again and again, for loving God and His people and His world. It seems I prophesied better than I knew when I named this blog. I chose 'love' as my one word for this year, and I've still barely scratched the surface of what that means. I might love well, but I am so very bad at being loved. Maybe that means I don't actually know love that well at all? This could become either very existential or very convoluted, so I will stop. The idea of one word for the year was never to build a rod for your back, but to lean into God and see your life changed by Him, through living intentionally and with commitment. All I have learned of love is that my heart is not my own. In giving it intentionally to Him, I have given permission for Him to direct my passions and my feet. I want to live His heart for the world, and this world is hurting and that means my heart hurts too. Days like today leave my heart physically aching in my chest.
I do not know very much about what next year will bring. A still small voice whispers that it is the year when everything changes, but guessing on what that means probably will not yield much in the way of revelation. I could probably guess until the end of days and still get it wrong.
I love the Agatha Christie quotation at the top of this post. That is what I want to speak into my life. Hurting and broken I might be, but I am alive in the world where my Saviour walked. I know Him a little, and He knows all of me - the good, the bad, the ugly, the hidden. I think we are walking in momentous days, and it is of no use to wish that this lot had fallen to someone else. We must simply live the days we have been given, and do what we can with them. (As if there were anything simple about that.) We do what we can, we offer our loaves and fishes, and then watch as He makes a miracle.
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