Dementia: Pathways to Hope (eBook)

Chapter 2

The Brightest Hope on the Narrowest Path

The solid nature of real hope, and examples of how it works

What do we mean by “hope”? It’s a term used in a kind of aspirational way today to mean wishing for an outcome; looking forward to something that may or may not be fulfilled. But “hope” in the biblical sense means more than wishing that something might happen; it’s a kind of confident expectation, of looking forward to something that we know will happen, because God is in it. There are graphic examples of this in my church in Wales.

They are the people who come in from a drug rehabilitation centre. They generally sit together, in the same section of the auditorium. They are mainly men, in their twenties and thirties, all dressed respectably, and they don’t just sit there. They’re all engaged, and they nearly all worship. Looking at them blesses my socks off. These are people with unimaginably sad backgrounds: former drug addicts, alcoholics, some jailbirds and criminals, yet here they are being loved and accepted and prepared for a new life. It’s not a flash-in-the-pan programme, either, which drops them afterwards to make their own way. Some will complete the programme and return to their own regions (I’ve heard Northern Irish and London accents), but some will stay and become part of the church community.

One of our pastors could never have imagined, when he was a drug addict in prison, that he would go to Bible school and then lead a Pentecostal church, preaching brilliant sermons. His talks on God’s “I am” declaration reveal the grand swoop of this God who created the entire universe and yet works in each one of us at atomic level.

Sitting next to a large, leather-jacketed man with a London accent in the foyer one day, I asked what he planned to do next. I thought that he resembled one of the infamous Kray brothers, only bigger and better-looking. He told me he was looking at different work options, but couldn’t wait to become part of a team reaching out to people on the streets and in the pubs.

“I want to tell them there’s a better way – there’s a better future,” he said. “The answer is Jesus.”

It’s important, because how we see the future affects how we feel about our life today. Think about it. How often have you stuck at a tiring or dreary task because the result would be worth it? Jacob worked for his Uncle Laban for fourteen years despite being tricked by him, because he saw a future with his beloved Rachel. If we feel the future is promising, we will work hard towards it.

When he was twelve years of age, Bill Wilson’s future was desperately uncertain. He was abandoned on a street corner by his mother, who told him to wait. He stayed on that corner for three days, with no food and no water, waiting for her to come back. Thousands of people passed him by; a small, twelve-year-old boy totally alone and bewildered. On the third day a Christian man stopped to question him, and took him into his own home. He also took him to church and paid for him to go to a Christian summer camp. Bill gave his life to Jesus and for the last thirty-odd years has devoted it to leading thousands of disadvantaged children and youngsters to Christ, and giving them a future. (“Disadvantaged” is putting it mildly.) Now, Bill Wilson’s Metro Ministries in New York reach an estimated 30,000 children each week.

It is incredibly tough work. Bill has been stabbed, beaten with baseball bats, and shot in the face; his heart has been broken countless times by the tragedies he sees there. When he spoke at my church he described taking a funeral for a six-year-old child who had been beaten to death by his drug-addicted mother. Not a single family member or friend came to the child’s funeral.

In the run-up to Christmas 2013, Bill gave up some of his precious time to be interviewed by Fox News. He was raising money for toys for the thousands of children who would have none that Christmas. The interviewer asked him where he found the strength within himself to move forward, to keep going, and not to become bitter after being abandoned by his mother as a child. He replied that everyone in life has the opportunity to become bitter because of what life throws at us, but added, “I learned that my commitment had to be stronger than my emotions. There will always be something in life that will come at you and so you decide... I believe in who Jesus is. I heard the message; I believed it. I was twelve years old. Looking back, in retrospect, that’s what’s carried me.”1

“That’s what carried me.” Note that Bill didn’t say, “That’s what I hang on to.” Sometimes life is so overwhelming that we can’t hang on in our own strength: that’s why Jesus hangs on to us. The former drug users and jailbirds at church will tell you the same. The message that they heard and which has carried them has been the hope of the message made real by the Holy Spirit within them. It’s not a wishy-washy dreamy kind of hope; it has substance. It’s this that makes the difference in our lives, even when there’s dementia. God hangs on to us.

Before the event at Calvary that changed the future for all mankind, Jesus prepared His disciples. He reassured them that they wouldn’t be left desolate without Him. He would ask the Father to give them “one who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you” (John 14:16–17, NLT). This is an amazing statement. The Holy Spirit was living with them because Jesus was there, but after He had left earth, His Spirit would live in them.

The Holy Spirit is “Christ in us, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27, ASV). To the Christians at Colossae the apostle Paul wrote, “This is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing His glory.” He is a kind of pledge, a down payment or foretaste of what’s to come. He is “God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance He promised and that He has purchased us to be His own people,” (Ephesians 1:14, NLT). Knowing the Holy Spirit is sensing the future, not just wishing for it.

How does this work in dementia?

For some years now, my work has been with a Christian charity founded in 1807 to care for older people. In the early days it helped with regular pensions and practical gifts, such as warm blankets, coal, and groceries. But everything was delivered in person so that there would always be companionship and warm, spiritual support. Nowadays the charity, the Pilgrims’ Friend Society (PFS), helps with housing and with nursing and care homes, and by sharing its experience and knowledge with others involved with older people. When I first came on board there were only a few people with dementia in the homes, but now there are dozens, perhaps as many as 50 or 60 per cent. A large part of my work as media and communications manager is meeting and listening to older people and their families and friends, as well as our care home staff and colleagues, and I can’t begin to count how many people that means altogether.

In most churches there are now more older people than younger and many pastors are having to deal with issues of old age that they are not familiar with, including dementia, so we are invited, more and more, to talk to churches and Christian organizations. We also take seminars and workshops at national conferences and events. “We” means a small team of people with a similar background of knowledge of different aspects of old age.

When we give talks at national events, if there is a “marketplace” we will have a stand with information about our charity work. Hundreds of people come to us with all sorts of comments and questions. They also send us emails, some staying in touch during their dementia journey. So we are in the middle of a stream of information coming from the “cutting edge”, including people who are coping with dementia. It means that as well as academic studies and research our work benefits from a rich stream of personal, current experience, which helps inform all we do.

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Sometimes it helps if we can take a “helicopter view” of our circumstances. When I give talks on dementia I often have a PowerPoint slide that shows a simple continuum:

Point A, on the left, is the time of a person’s birth, and point B, on the right, is the year that they developed dementia – way along the line because most cases of dementia occur after the age of seventy. Point C is the time of death, but the Christian’s lifeline goes beyond that into eternity, to “infinity and beyond”, where there’s heaven, then the new earth and the new heaven. It’s difficult to draw “infinity and beyond” on a book page, but I hope you can see what I mean. So, speaking very generally, for most of our lives we’re more or less OK and then, when we’re older (as a rule), we can develop dementia. Looked at in the light of eternity, dementia can be said to fall into the category of “light momentary affliction” that the apostle Paul...