Have you ever sung a hymn in church and puzzled over the lyrics? For years I’ve sung about being covered by the blood of Jesus, knowing in my head it refers to God’s sacrifice of his Son on the cross to save me from my sin, but feeling in my heart like an accidental bystander sprayed with the blood of a luckless victim.

This morning I finished Still Alice, by Lisa Genova (see my review) and had an epiphany. As Alice descends into the fog of early onset Alzheimer’s, her husband John struggles with all he is losing. Alice plants her feet firmly on the plateau of what she still has, but she fears that John would just as soon help her jump to her inevitable death to save himself the pain of her lengthy demise. I know that pain.

I knew less about Alzheimer’s during my father’s final years with the disease than I do now. I will admit that I just wanted it to be over, for him and for me. I loved him, but I truly had no desire to stand with him in those long days of confusion and inactivity.

Genova heightens the tension of Alice’s situation with a career opportunity of a lifetime for John that would remove him, physically and emotionally, from the family. It is a move he can justify. Being a master at rationalization, I am in no position judge him for what might look like insensitivity, though I wonder how faith factors into his decision, if it does.

To turn down an opportunity to use your knowledge and talent in a (largely) selfless attempt to better mankind seems foolish. But then, God has a history of asking people to do foolish things. Example: He gave Abraham a son and then told him to offer the boy as a sacrifice; kill him. That is just one tree in a forest of God’s expectations. His appetite for sacrifice culminates with the requirement that Jesus die a painful death on a cross to save our souls.

To look beyond reason is to see that the tempting job opportunity may in fact not be John’s last chance to make his mark in life. When we yield our highest ambitions and closely held beliefs about our identity to the way of love, we avail ourselves of the Christ who has gone before us and now stands on the plateau, ready to walk with us through the shadows and valleys into the light. What appears to be
senseless blood-letting turns out to be life giving.

photo credit: Rosie O’Beirne via photopin cc