My girlfriend texted me one night last week asking for my help in praying for her grandmother who had dementia and was missing. The city’s ground police and helicopter officers were all searching, yet hadn’t been able to locate her. I believe in the power of prayer (especially in numbers) and went straight to it, asking God for His guiding hand in returning this sweet woman back to her family.
About an hour later I received another text. It said: “She was just found!!!!!!! She hitchhiked a ride to St. James church to pray.”
I took a huge sigh of relief knowing she was safe and in good hands. But I couldn’t seem to get her out of my head that night, and the days to follow.
My own grandmother suffered from dementia, and she too would leave our home without warning, walk the streets and eventually make her way to a nearby church. We would all frantically search for her in different directions, only to come home to find her asleep in her bed, with prayer pamphlets in hand.
It amazes me how the mind of a dementia sufferer can drift SO far, often leaving them and us with little understanding, and at times even confused or frustrated. Yet how is it, that this woman, and my grandmother, still knew God? How is it, that they still wanted to BE with Him? Is it because He is really where home is? Are they in fact, not missing, confused, or lost at all?
I hope that when all else eludes me, when my memories fade and my eyes lose their luster, when I forget who I am or who you are, what year it is or where I have been… that I am like those grandmothers… never forgetting how to make my way right back to God.
