Audrey received a very interesting letter yesterday. More precisely, she received back a letter she wrote and sent in November of 2004. Yes, that’s right. Almost four years later she received back the letter unopened, with the notice “unable to forward.” Where was it for 3 ½ years? I don’t know. But what’s important is what Audrey wrote in the letter. It’s about 10 months after her husband, Larry’s dad, Don, died, that she is writing the letter. She writes, “I miss Don so much and it will be one year Feb. 3rd [that he died]. I’m having a hard time trying to get along by myself after almost 63 years [of marriage]! Sue [to whom she’s writing], I hope you have found a buyer for your place, but keep praying (I am!) and the Lord’s time is always the best time. We get used to having things go our way, but God only knows what we need.”
As Larry and I read the letter, we grieved for the woman that Audrey used to be. In less than four years, the woman who wrote that letter has been replaced by a woman who questions God’s timing in causing her to live so long and who now believes that the memory loss she has about so much of her life was caused while being in the hospital after Don tried to kill her because he wanted to get her money. And he tried to kill her after he killed his own wife in order to marry her. All of course is not true.
It sounds convoluted but that’s what brain disease does (Lewy-Bodies dementia with paranoia, delusions and hallucinations). These stories of her past are a part of her delusions.
As I grieved that we could no longer know the women who wrote the letter, I heard (I think from the Lord) “return to your first love.” Audrey won’t ever be able to return to the first love she had for Don. But I can return to my first love for the Lord. I can be enthusiastic and grateful as when I first came to know him 40 years ago.
Revelation 2:4 reminds us, “’But I have this against you, that you have left your first love.” I want to make sure I keep that.
