A View from the Buggy (30 page)

Usually I sit and relax for a few minutes at this point, but I know Martha needs help so I keep going. Katie would no doubt arrive before me at Dad and Mom's place, since she doesn't have a farm and only three children. And I am right. Katie's buggy is there when I arrive. Martha and Katie have finished Grandma's morning sponge bath and taken care of the open sore on her back. They dressed Grandma and placed her in the wheelchair. Even with the two of them, they had found this quite a job, they told me. But Grandma is now eating breakfast.

Mom had shown me how to soak and dress the sores on Grandma's feet. Grandma is a diabetic, so sores are a constant concern and hard to heal. With Grandma's breakfast finished, I tackle the job. I prepare two bowls of water, one hot and the other cold. I begin by soaking Grandma's feet—four minutes in the hot and half a minute in the cold. Back and forth, back and forth.

Grandma's a patient soul and seldom complains. Frequently she doesn't recognize us and will talk about people and things the rest of us can't see. Today she hasn't recognized my sisters, but she now knows who I am and she's patient with my inexperience.

When the soaking is done, it's time to clean the sores. This one especially is bad. I hand over the task to Katie for a moment, stepping outside in the fresh air. I'm soon able to go on, and the two of us re-bandage the foot with burdock leaves and salve.

With everything completed, we give Grandma her pills and settle
her back into her wheelchair. Things are as comfortable for Grandma as we can make it. Katie and I sit down and look at each other. It's nearly lunchtime. We have been busy most of the forenoon taking care of Grandma—all three of us.

I think for the first time we realize everything Mom does. It's only in the last months that Grandma has become so helpless. We had been trying to stop by and help. But even with the best efforts of us sisters and sisters-in-law, the bulk of the work falls to Mom.

We soon make lunch and eat. It's later in the afternoon when we help Grandma with her first bathroom trip. She tells us in her soft, quivery voice, “Ach…I never dreamed I would come to this.”

Tears prick my eyes as I tell her, “We're glad to do this for you. Someday it might be one of us.”

I tried to imagine how that would be. I know it can't be easy, becoming ever more helpless and suffering these indignities. My mind went back through the years to when Grandpa was still alive. That was 25 years ago. He also wasn't well before he passed away. I remember Grandma helping Grandpa with the same things we were now helping her with. During his last weeks, we had visited them. I sat beside Grandpa at the table and his hands trembled when I passed the dishes to him. Once he dropped a dish and Grandma reached over and steadied it for him.

Grandpa had been a farmer. He knew about long, full days of working in the fields. His last days contained none of that, though. His body succumbed to Parkinson's. His feet shuffled. His hands shook. His voice was weak. Grandpa was bedridden the last month. I was only 13.

Now Grandma is where Grandpa had been. The years keep marching by, and if time continues for us, we too might someday come to this place. It's a sobering thought.

At the end of the day, we go home with a greater empathy, not only for Grandma and Mom, but for all the elderly who must give up everything they've been used to. Bit by bit, they lose out. We pray they will have faithful caregivers.

Life begins for us when we are young. We grow up and see the same thing happen with our own children. We diaper and bathe our babies.
We dress and feed them. We do it year after year with each new arrival. There are sacrifices and it's a lot of work, but it's a joyful calling full of rewards and filled with promise and expectation. With training and prayer we expect our children to grow up and live a life of service.

It is different when we reach the other end and our life of service is over. The mind and body are ebbing. There's a beauty that comes with the acceptance of this, as there is in the devoted services of the caregiver, though both are tinged with sadness. We consider caring for Grandma a priceless privilege, and one which places our own lives in a clearer perspective. We do it gladly, knowing God has a purpose and a plan, and it is good.

New Beginnings

Nathan Miller

Excerpted from
Out of Deception

For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

I
TURNED INTO MY BROTHER
A
LVA
'
S DRIVEWAY WITH APPREHENSION IN
my heart. What would my new life in Evart be like? It had been hard to leave what I knew…but after having broken free from what was a cultlike experience with self-proclaimed prophet Wilbur Lee, I was ready to move on. Hopefully it would be here in Evart.

Alva's wife, Elnora, gave me a warm welcome—hopefully that was a sign of good things to come. I carried my luggage in the house and got everything situated in my room. Soon Alva came home from work for lunch. After he welcomed me and showed me around the place, we went inside to eat.

Throughout the next several days, Alva and I had many long discussions about my life with Wilbur Lee. Freely sharing my experiences allowed me to view them from a completely different perspective. Many times I was embarrassed to relate what we had believed as a group.

On Sunday, church services were held at Alva's house. I sat in rapt attention as the ministers expounded God's Word. I felt like a dry sponge soaking up the living water of truth.

“Jesus was here as a human being, yet He was without sin,” the minister preached. “His purpose was to bring hope to lost mankind. He is the great healer of our souls. One of His missions on earth was to bring physical healing. This was God's way of getting people to believe Him.
He healed a number of lepers. Leprosy was a terminal illness, yet He healed them every time.”

Wilbur Lee had never healed anyone. He could not even heal Mary's cancer. Suddenly I remembered the vision of Jesus I had had after leaving Wilbur Lee's. I hadn't thought about it for months. I began to think maybe Jesus was the Son of God after all. The minister certainly seemed confident that what he was preaching was the truth. And he didn't spend time knocking other churches; he simply presented the Bible.

“The Bible is absolutely true,” the minister continued. “How do we know it is true? First of all because of the difference it makes in our lives when we believe its truths and live them. Jesus tells us in His Word what we are to do.”

My mind flashed back to my vision.
Oh, so that's what Jesus meant when He told me, “Do as I say.”
Perhaps if I had searched the Bible and believed everything it said, things would have turned out differently. Instead, my life was sure a mess now. I needed to find the truth.

After church the bishop walked up to me. “So you are Alva's brother?”

“Yes, I am,” I responded.

“My name is Omer Miller. I'm glad to see you here. You're welcome to come to our house to visit anytime,” he said.

That evening Alva and I sat in the living room visiting. My thoughts returned to the sermon.

“Alva, how do you know the Bible is true?” I asked.

“I simply believe it is true,” he stated with confidence. “It has made all the difference in my life.”

“When I left Wilbur Lee the first time, I read the first chapter of Romans. I could really identify with that.”

“That's what you need to do. You have to read the Bible. The more you read it, the clearer it will become,” he advised. “All the answers to our troubles are in there.”

“So, you don't believe it makes one proud to read the Bible too much?” I asked.

Alva chuckled. “No, certainly not. If we read it for the right reasons,
it will humble us. It shows us how sinful we are before God and how helpless we are without Him.”

“Why would God kill His Son, Jesus, if He is a God of love?” I asked.

“God didn't kill Him. The angry people killed Him. However, God allowed Him to die because there was no other way for us humans to be saved from our sins. Ever since Adam and Eve sinned, blood was required to redeem the sinner from his condemnation. God is righteous; therefore, He cannot tolerate any sin. All of us have sinned at some time in our life. In the Old Testament the priest would offer an animal's blood as atonement, which worked for a time, but God wanted to cleanse us from our sins for all time. Animals were not sufficient to take away our sins.

“The only person who qualified was Jesus, because He never committed a sin. He was completely pure and innocent. He became our prophet, priest, and king. God sent Jesus down to earth in the form of a baby, and when He grew to manhood, He endured all the temptations that we have, yet He did not commit sin. God knew that nobody is good enough by his own strength to please Him and enter heaven; therefore, God allowed the people to kill Him. However, He did not leave Him in the grave. Three days later Jesus rose from death. Now He lives at the right hand of God in heaven. If we confess our sins, believe Him with our whole heart, accept Him in our lives, and repent, or turn away from our sins, then He will give us His Holy Spirit and we can have victory over sin. Isn't that wonderful?”

I was spellbound. I had never heard anything like this. “It seems like Wilbur Lee may have taught something like this in the beginning, but it sure didn't last long,” I said.

“When Jesus saves us from our sins, He also forgives us for all the bad things we have ever done. We don't have to live with a guilty conscience anymore. However, when we accept Jesus as our Savior, we must also accept Him as our Lord. We do what He tells us in His Word, the Bible. If we disobey Him, we become guilty again. We must confess our sins; then He will forgive us and we become clean again. The only sin that cannot be forgiven is the sin that isn't repented of,” Alva said.

“But what if we commit the unpardonable sin of blasphemy of the Holy Ghost?” I asked.

“Well,” Alva responded, “God convicts us through the Holy Spirit. As long as we are resisting and speaking against the Holy Spirit, there is no forgiveness. When we choose to listen to His promptings and respond, He will forgive us. A person who is concerned about having committed an unpardonable sin can rest assured that he has not. If you are concerned, that's a sign that the Holy Spirit is working in your life. If He is convicting you, He hasn't left you. The Holy Spirit is faithful to convict you. He will come repeatedly, attempting to get your attention. If you resist Him too long, there will be a point when He comes for the last time. We do not know for certain when that time is. We do know one can never repent and be forgiven after death. In 1 John 1:9, it says, ‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' ”

“That sure sounds more hopeful than what I have been taught so far!” I exclaimed. “Wilbur Lee taught us that becoming angry is a sign that we have blasphemed the Holy Ghost. And yet, he became angry himself.”

Alva chuckled, “Well, according to his own teachings, Wilbur Lee must have committed the unpardonable sin.”

Two evenings later I went to Bishop Omer's house to visit. He invited me inside and we made ourselves comfortable in the living room.

“So, what did you and your group believe?” he asked me.

“The group we were involved with is a cult,” I began.

“It's interesting that there would be a cult consisting only of Amish,” Omer said skeptically. “Why would you join a cult?”

“That's hard to explain. We were searching for meaning in life. Wilbur Lee took an interest in us and gave answers to many of our questions,” I said. “In the beginning he taught us from the Bible, but after a while he developed his own teachings and taught us revelations he supposedly received from the Father.”

“After he had lured you away from the Amish church?” he asked.

“Yes. Once we lost faith in the things we'd been taught and those who had taught us, we were vulnerable. Now I don't even have Wilbur Lee. I guess I'm on my own.”

“Do you have any plans for your future?” he asked.

“Well, I'm sure I don't want to be Amish,” I chuckled nervously.

“I see. What is your impression of the Amish?” Omer asked.

“Not very good,” I responded. “Most of them are hypocrites who don't know what they believe. They allow smoking, drinking, dirty jokes, and sins like that in the church and don't do anything about it. They just live the way they do because that's the way their ancestors lived.”

“Unfortunately, there are Amish churches that allow sin in the church,” the bishop said. “You will find a large variation amongst the Amish as far as what they allow and how they apply the Scriptures. But many Amish churches do not allow sin. The Amish lifestyle doesn't save us. Perhaps too many Amish do believe that way, but it's not scriptural. We believe that we have eternal life by trusting Jesus for our redemption.”

“So you don't think I would be saved just by joining the Amish?” I questioned.