Claire’s Prayers

Some beautiful thoughts from Anthony Russo on the heartfelt prayers of an elderly Alzheimer's patient - Claire’s Prayers | SBC Voices:

...There in the silence of a room full of people Claire prayed as though only Jesus could hear her. Said with a slow and careful reverence, we all heard the same childlike words of faith God was hearing,

Dear Jesus, Thank you for being my Savior. You are my Savior and I love you. Thank you for my husband and our church and our pastor. I love you Jesus. You are my Savior.

If ever I sat in a holy moment, it was that one. Claire’s once agile mind, now racked with all the altering cruelties the disease could press upon it, could not be diminished in expressing the deepest loyalties of her heart. The atheist Richard Dawkins himself would have been converted if he heard her tender sincerity.

Alzheimer’s is not the only illness inside Claire. While it is attacking her mind another is attacking her body. How much longer she has is known only by her Savior. Even so, the very thing that has made Christianity unique everywhere it has been proclaimed is no less true for Claire: Resurrection. The “living hope” as Peter calls it; just as the Lord Jesus Christ defeated the damning effects of sin and triumphed over the hopeless grave, so now we who hope in Him need no longer despair that which comes to us all.

Someday, because of Jesus Christ, Claire will have vitality in mind and body like she’s never had on earth. A glorified, sinless vitality. Eternal life. And when that day comes she will look at her Lord and say with perfect clarity, “Dear Jesus, Thank you for being my Savior. You are my Savior and I love you.”

Amen, Sister Clarie, Amen!