Lost Within

Chapter 1 Lost Within One day I received a phone call from my sister informing me that our mother was ill. I remember thinking that I knew very little about this disease and wondered what was going to happen to her. What is she going to go through? I knew that I needed to educate myself as much as I could about the disease that my mother was stricken with so I could properly care for her. I knew it would help me prepare myself for a season in the future filled with uncertainty and challenges. We do not know what the future holds for us but we can try to prepare as best as possible. With the support of my husband, the time came when I decided to quit my job because she was at a point with her Alzheimer’s that necessitated my constant care. One of the symptoms of this disease is being a wanderer, looking for a childhood place, therefore, always wanting to leave. For this reason, we installed key dead bolt locks. As a wanderer, my mother left the house several times a day saying she was going home. She would go a few doors down to my sister’s house and visit for a while. Then she would say to my sister, “I am going home,” and would return to her house. Once again she said to me that she was going home but this time I replied, “Mom, you are home. This is your house.” Her response overwhelmed and touched my heart. It brought tears to my eyes and is a comment that I will never forgot. She sat down on her sofa for a few seconds and began to cry then said, “I feel so lost.” I assured her that I was here to take care of, love and protect her. You see, my mother was not lost. She just felt lost within herself, at her home, and her surroundings, because of the disease. My mother was unable to recognize her home in her mind but in essence she was not lost. As time went on I noticed one remarkable thing. As she began to forget names, people, how to cook, and other simple things I was amazed at the fact that she didn’t forget how to pray and lift up her hands to praise her Lord and Savior, Jesus; Yeshua his Hebrew name. This reminds me of the scripture in John 14:26, “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” I believe the Holy Spirit was helping my mother to remember because in 1987 she confessed Jesus as her Lord according to Romans 10:9 and was water baptized. Being a child of God gave her rights to what the Bible entitled. Also in Joshua 1:5 it says, “…as I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you nor forsake you.” I believe that Joshua grabbed hold of this word in his heart because he knew that he was going into battle to possess the land given and promised by covenant to the Israelites by almighty God. For us to remember and grab hold of His Word it would have to be in our hearts which comes by reading the Bible in its entirely. Throughout this time as I cared for my mom we grabbed hold of His word and knew that He would never leave nor forsake us. He takes care of His children and I could see how He was with us. One day we decided to clean her closet and as she tried on all her clothes there were skirts that just fell off her. Other clothes were too small and she could not zip or button up. I remember we both began to laugh and laugh. We rolled on the bed laughing and I laughed so hard that my stomach ached. After we stopped laughing I thanked God because in the midst of this disease we were able to find joy. That moment of joy came from the Lord and this is why I know that He watched over us. This is a memory that will stay with me forever. Knowing that one day she would no longer recognized me as her daughter and not knowing from day to day how she would react when she saw me was why I needed to remember to grab hold of His Word. The time did come when she did not recognize me but praise the Lord that she never seemed afraid around me. She, having forgotten that I was her daughter, made me wonder if she saw me as someone who loved her or someone who could threaten her. I called her mom as often as I could in hopes that it would bring comfort to her. It was an emotional time for me to see my mom forgetting things and I always wondered what she felt when she looked at me. Well one day she called me the lady of the medicine because she could not remember the word nurse. Remember that at this time in her mind I am a stranger to her. Did she feel scared, confused, alone, hopeless, abandoned, and unsure? I can’t begin to fathom what an awful sense it’d be to feel lost within yourself or your home. She was always searching for something or someone, not knowing or realizing that it was all at her fingertips. If she could only remember that I’m her daughter, the one who was there to love and protect her then maybe she could feel comfortable in her surroundings and know that she was in her home. I wonder if at times we feel alone and for a moment we are searching for something or someone. Only to realize that His Word is at our fingertips and all we have to do is call out to the Lord for help. He loves us and is there to protect His children. At this time she was forgetting more words or their meanings so she was not able to grab hold of His Word. Challenging as that may have been, it was up to me to somehow make her feel safe and I truly had to be guided by the Holy Spirit. Part of the time when I cared for my mom I moved into her home in Texas, again, with my husband’s support. During the time that I took care of her I wrote about my mother’s actions. I wrote about some of her word pronunciation and phrases. Upon mentioning this to one of my cousins her response was, “you should write a book.” One day my husband called from Michigan and said that he was diagnosed with a heart murmur. He was told that in the future open heart surgery would be necessary. I made the decision to move back to Michigan and brought my mother with me. Shortly after this I had to make a very difficult decision to stop caring for my mother because I believed it would have been too challenging to care for both. Soon after I took my mother back to Texas and gave her to the care of my sister. Later in March of 2005 my husband and I moved to Wyoming. Then in the year 2007 while sitting in my living room the Lord spoke to me and said, “Lost Within.” He said it was the title of my book. He took me back to the time when my mother said, “I feel so lost.” My first thought was, “I am not a writer,” and then asked the Lord how and why. I remembered my cousin saying to me that I should write a book. So I began to write a book on Alzheimer’s disease but really struggled and could not finish no matter how hard I tried. So at that time I set it aside and forgot about writing. Between 2005 and 2012 several things had happened in my life. Things that I will talk about later in the book but it was a time for me to trust, learn, and grow in the Lord. I had taught at several churches but at the time I did not know that these teaching were to be part of my book. Then in the summer of 2012 the Lord said, “Lost Within, write the book!” When He said write the book I knew that it had to be written quickly. This time with the guidance of the Holy Spirit I began to write a book not on Alzheimer’s but on the Word of God in us. “Lost within” is a book about getting the Word of God in our hearts and not letting it become suppressed or dormant within. It is about the importance of having a relationship with the Lord. This is how “Lost Within” was birthed in my spirit. I believe that writing this book, with His help, is one way that the Lord wants to touch the lives of many people. Will we continue to grow or will we allow the word of God to become dormant? One of the Lord’s desires is for us to continually have a relationship with Him.