Well, thanks for some response! I found the replies to be very interesting and could empathise with them! Connecting socially is always difficult and I am also known for leaving medical issues for too long and seeing the docotor's look of disbelief!! I'm not sure if recognition of the problems bring freedom (maybe eventually) but it is good to look at the world with new eyes. The trouble is, that makes me realise how much I missed in learning and studying academic subjects.
My biggest issue, I think, is - having had a childhood totally immersed in Christian Science - should I develop Alzheimer's, then will I regress to my Christian Science childhood way of thinking? Will the world to which I might regress be doubly confusing for my carers, who will most likely have no knowledge of how I used to think? Maybe I'm just being pessimistic!
Any ideas?
2 comments:
Hi, sorry for a late reply but I’ve just discovered this site – I do hope it’s not too late. Just to establish my credentials to be here: I haven't actually been CS, though went to CS Sunday School as a child for a year or two as my best friend is/was CS (still not sure about that and am going through pain on her behalf as I know she's feeling tugged in two directions now) and I wanted to understand what she believed. My parents didn't mind as they didn't particularly believe anything but thought if something said it was Christian it must be totally harmless! I am a Christian now, thank God.
To your question: none of us knows for sure whether we're going to have Alzheimer's and what we'll believe if we do. (I might go around with my knickers on my head and believe I'm a poached egg or Jesus himself!) If we "build our house on rock" (Jesus) I'm hoping that just for our own peace we'll still be able to think enough to cling to him. But even if we don't, God is loving and faithful and just and will keep firm grip of us and not take away his hand because of frailty - EVEN if we're raging against God and think we hate him while we die! (Which is just the devil launching yet another attack on someone weak, even though he knows he hasn't got a chance.) God can certainly distinguish physical frailty, that makes us lose our marbles, from real rebellion in our spirit to him! (Even if we do violently rebel in so-called “sanity”, respected theologians I’ve read say that we still can't fall out of his hand once we’ve come in. God can use all sorts of circumstances to bring us back to him when we backslide – just read the Old Testament again! The means may seem horrible to us from an earthly perspective, but certainly keep us flying back to God as our only hope, and safe eternally.)
John 10:28-30: "I give them [the sheep] eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand. I and the Father are one."
If we make prayer a habit – and I have to say I’m not very good at doing “proper prayers” by myself, rather than talking to God and trying to be on the alert to listen to Him during the day – then when the storms come and our physical brains aren’t working properly, our spirit can go into autopilot. (That’s just my feeling – I don’t know if it’s scriptural other than that the Spirit of God searches our hearts and prays for us “with groans” that interpret our deeper yearnings for God that we just can’t express, whether with Alzheimer’s or without.)
Also, "My peace I give to you." So rest in it, his word and promises, and know you're forever loved by God. So when the storms come (and they always do) we know our Rock is Jesus. And that "when we are weak, then God is strong". Not only weak in the sense of humility, acknowledging our weakness and God’s – well, God’s everything – but also just when we need to be carried can be grateful to know that we will be – and, in the case of Alzheimer’s, know in advance! Sorry to go on for so long. I promise to try not to if I come here again. L x
Thank you.Putting aside the religious aspect, it's the thought of sinking back into a CS mode of thinking from childhood which is worrying. Worrying is putting it mildly because there would be no control over the relapse and re-entering a CS thought world. As a child I "was" Christian Science in thought, word and deed!
Be assured, being Christian Science is an experience all its own, especially if one has had radically reliant parents.
We know so little about the human mind. If an 80 year old can be mentally aged 15...I certainly would not want to relive being 15, for example.
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