Skip to main content

Always My Best Friend

My best friend is suffering from that dreaded disease called Alzheimers.

 Unless God performs a miracle, Dolly will not be here on earth a lot longer, and without a miracle, during her final days, weeks, months (or however long the Lord chooses to let her remain here) she won't be the Dolly I've always known.

 I have memories of such beautiful moments with Dolly.  A lot of them, actually, took place during the most painful times of my life.  When my Paul was dying in a Kentucky hospital (for 56 days and nights), Dolly stayed with me in the critical care waiting room every night.  This was after teaching 3rd grade kiddos all day.

 I also have fun memories.  We traveled through Europe together two summers in a row.  One time an airline didn't get my product box on the flight with us.  When we landed in Florida and discovered it had gone on its own adventure, Dolly referred to it as "exciting" while I was huffin' and puffin' about what I was gonna do!  She had a knack for finding "fun" in challenging moments, the kind of moments that make me want to walk off the planet.

 I miss Dolly...would love to walk into that nursing home and ask her to open her eyes and she'd do it like it was no big deal.  Again, without God's miracle, that won't happen, but I hold to the promise of another day...the day Jesus has promised those who beleive He is the Son of The Most High God. That day is coming, then Dolly will again giggle and say, "How exciting!"...and we'll make more memories.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

From here to there

A lot of you are familiar with or at least know of my only niece, Scarlett (or Sweet Scarlett, as I often refer to her). A brilliant gal in the prime of her life and career was involved in a horrible car accident at the age of 36, leaving her with a severe brain injury. God has brought her so far….so many accomplishments that she wasn’t “supposed” to ever achieve. A couple of years ago while she was going through a particularly hard struggle, she said to me, “Aunt Ann, I know I’m gonna make it, but right now I’m in that in between place”. I knew exactly what she was saying…and I’d imagine you do, too, right? We believe that God’s gonna walk with us and get us to the other side…however, sometimes it just seems like a longggggg way from here to there, doesn’t it? We’re gonna make it..but there are times we sure do need a hand to hold or place to rest on the journey….’cause we aren’t “there” yet…and we need to hear from somebody, who actually cares where we are struggling, that w...
6 comments
Read more

Courageous Non-pursuit

I’ve always appreciated the story of the prodigal son, the wonderful story of promise that God never gives up on the wayward children.   Recently, the scripture grabbed me from a different perspective. Did you ever think about this…there is no account that says the father went out looking for his son who had made the decision to leave and go do his own thing?   Surely the father was brokenhearted, most likely prayed every waking minute of every day for his boy whom he loved dearly, BUT, he stayed home.   I believe God has shown me that the father in the story had faith that He (God) would return the son to his senses and restore him to the family.   The earthly father didn’t have to go begging, making deals, blurring all kinds of boundaries by trying to do God’s work.   He just knew the Heavenly Father would be pursuing and could be trusted to do a work that would be eternal. So what’s the big deal, Ann?   Well, for me (maybe for some of you, too), it ...
4 comments
Read more

Faith Giving

My parents taught me about being quick to give but to use good judgment and wisdom in who to give to and making sure I give for the right reasons. I’ve been truly blessed these past few days by true givers.  Typically January is a slow month for traveling ministries like Downing Ministries.  This month has been especially challenging in that one weekend had only one booking and this past weekend just didn’t book at all.  Having seen the major snowstorm that blew through late last week, we wouldn’t likely have been able to fulfill dates if they had scheduled.  I’ve been hesitant to do a “plea” as such for help, somehow feeling that God had this and could work far better than I could.  I want to report, as I do the happy dance, that “giving folks” have started doing just that…GIVING out of their hearts to Downing Ministries.  To make the happy dance last longer, let me say that most of these gifts are from some folks I KNOW don’t have it to give in ...
6 comments
Read more