It’s been said that infants bring us close to God because they have so recently been with the angels. I believe our elders also give us glimpses of divinity because, in the words of songwriter Bob Dylan, they are “knocking on heaven’s door.”
I’ve been pondering this because my mother turned 100 last May. Now it’s seven months later, and I’ve been visiting her in Oregon from my home in Rhode Island. According to the latest statistics, less than one-percent of the population has a centenarian parent. For me, the rarity of this gift is part of what makes it so spiritual. My mother is as human as anyone else, and yet she shows me the feminine face of God.
When I help her walk, I remember that, years ago, she did the same for me, and this makes me wonder whether our relationship with God comes full-circle in a similar way. My mom’s unsteady legs and shuffling feet remind me that she needs me as much as I have needed her throughout my life.
It reassures me to think our relationship with God is like this. Why would we have been created if God doesn’t need us in some special way? But if we believe this, do we meditate on the wonder of it?
If God needs you like no one else, you must have great value. The question is, Do you value yourself as much as God does? Asking this question as a prayer invites light into even our darkest times. If you can trust that God needs everything about you–including the things you struggle with the most–you will gain access to hope and peace, and possibly even joy, far beyond your own.
As I walk with my mom, her wrinkled hands grasp my arms, and her gnarled fingers press against my skin. She trembles slightly and rocks, left to right, right to left. The plastic slip-protectors on her socks tap and click against the smooth linoleum floor. We stop and start, stop and start. In unpredictable moments, her darting brown eyes land on mine, just as they did when I gazed up at her as I was learning to walk years ago, and she smiles.
It’s a short trip from the bedroom to the bathroom.
Just to heaven and back.
This was very moving, Evan. I have definitely had the same thoughts while walking and talking with Mom. Every time I help her with her “acts of daily living,” I think about her taking care of me as a baby and young child. I also think of the circular nature of the human experience of being cared for as a child, then caregiving as a mother, and then being cared for again as an older, dependent senior. I’m so grateful that the God of the universe loves me and cares for me no matter how little regard I sometime show for Him. In the same way, Mom has loved me unconditionally — although I was a very unloving and selfish child some of the time. I really do enjoy being able to somehow repay her for that love when I have the opportunity to care for her.