April 2nd

Daddy went home to Jesus in his eightieth year after six years of Alzheimer’s infirmities. When mother followed she was eighty-nine. She had been an active nursing-home resident (her choice) until three days before her departure for Glory, as active as anyone can be confined to a wheelchair with an oxygen tank attached! She was named New Mexico’s Grandmother of the Year by the State Nursing Home Association. We know about infirmity.

My husband and I have had many opportunities to minister to the elderly and infirm, and it has been our joy to do so. We have met a deaf blind lady, 101 years of age, who could use only the sense of touch to tell who it was serving her needs. One dear man, a victim of the aphasia of stroke, sang lustily in our nursing-home meeting one Sunday afternoon making no sense in his sounds at all. He blessed us and the Lord in spite of his wife’s concern that he was a disruption. We have seen what infirmity is all about and pray much for those who are in the prison of infirmity.

INFIRMITY
Ah, where are the bright days,
The star-spangled-night days,
When in my full vigor I pushed back the hours?
Ah, where sped youth’s strong days,
The highly-spiced, long days,
The strain-to-full-height days of castles and towers?

Ah, where flew the work days,
The I-would-not-shirk days,
The days when my family depended on me?
Ah, where went the easy days,
The gay, bright and breezy days,
The no-troubles-lurk days alongside the sea?

I live stretched-out-slow days,
Long waiting-to-know days,
When heartbeats are measured and time creeps along.
There are hungry-to-share days,
Such sluggish and bare days
That all long-ago days within my mind throng.

I have mixed-up-mind days,
And tears-my-eyes-blind days
When mind, soul, and body bow low in despair;
But there are heal and mend days,
Some God-sends-a-friend days,
Some blessings-I-find days … if I don’ t forget prayer.

Prayer: Dear Lord, give me compassion and understanding for the infirm whom I know or learn about. Help me to be a friend to them.