“The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God stands forever.” (Isaiah 40:8)
Memory Work
She had been a member of the Free Presbyterian Church all her life. Faithfully and diligently she had read the Scriptures and memorized multiple sections of the Word throughout her life. Now, during the autumn of her life, she started to lose control of her faculties little by little. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, that degenerative disease which leaves a human being ultimately as a mere shell, at a vegetative level.
The minister of her congregation visited her faithfully in the care facility where she now resided for a number of years, recounts Rev. Alan Cairns to his audience. The time came that the minister could not have a conversation with her anymore. He would greet her, mention his name, and ask after her well-being, but would not even receive a signal that she was aware of his presence. She was essentially cut off from all human communication and relationship. Effectively, she had already left this world behind.
“But,” recalls Rev. Cairns, “then the moment came, after he had chatted in monologue for a while, that the minister took out his Bible and started to read from the Scriptures. To his amazement he heard a soft, quavering voice speaking the same Scriptures which he was reading. Whereas no communication at all was possible anymore, whereas she needed full-fledged help from bed to toilet and to mealtimes, when it came to God’s Word, she actually came alive and spoke!” All the memory work she had imbibed all through her life was still there, even with everything else gone!
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