There Will be no More Crying, or Nipping

Mom K was perky yesterday, but speaking only in German, both to the Nursing Home staff and to Arvo. I guess I better do a crash course on some basic German....
The brain is quite an amazing organ. All those billions of firing neurons in the advent of Alzheimers, seem to revert to an earlier time of life, and oldest memories are the ones that survive.

We hadn't had an official Alzheimer diagnosis until the broken leg and hospital stay. Apparently they could see some of the telltale plaque on a CT scan....or something like that. It was no surprise to find it out, but they didn't tell us. We just stumbled on the knowledge while speaking with the nursing staff.

However, she is still quite conversant, be it in German, still remembers how to knit and the scarf she is making for me is slowly progressing. She still seems to know us as at least beloved figures if not exactly the people she thinks we are. The pain in her hip seems better, and she seems relatively happy. Alzheimers is cruel, but less cruel to the victims when they become less aware that their memory is deserting them. If she is reliving her childhood in Germany and I am her sister, so be it. I think it was a happy time in her life.

Our small group church class discussed the meaning of the phrase "Jesus is the first born from among the dead" from Colossians 1. I had never thought much of that phrase, but the teacher pointed out why would the word 'first' be used, unless there were others to follow? The verse refers to Jesus returning once and for all from death, eternally conquering that horrible conclusion, and here comes the good part! Guess who gets to follow Him?! Mom K, and me, and you...and all who believe that Jesus is who He says He is and by taking the punishment we deserved upon Himself, paid the penalty for our sin, rendering us clean in God's sight. We may enter the pearly gates, like Mom K perhaps speaking German or babbling like a toddler, but death will be conquered, and our recently deceased little parakeet may decide not to nip us anymore in Heaven.


Colossians 1:15-20 (NIV)
The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. [16] For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. [17] He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. [18] And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. [19] For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, [20] and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

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