Julie’s Story:
For my fourth-grade school picture, I wore my favorite hair clip shaped like a pencil and a colorful, striped sweater. As I got dressed, I thought, Wow! I am beautiful!
When I got to school, I saw a classmate whose perfect curls rested on her frilly white dress. Suddenly, instead of feeling beautiful, I felt silly and embarrassed. From that point on, I compared myself with other girls and felt I came out lacking. Another girl was always thinner, more stylish, or had better skin and hair.
Since I was self-conscious about my own appearance, I often thought my mom should dress more stylishly or have a more flattering hairstyle. I thought, I sure could teach her a thing or two about beauty!
But my mom was consumed with Jesus instead of her appearance. Resting in what Jesus thought of her, she never seemed to care what others thought. And as I grew older, I realized her lack of obsession with her appearance contributed to her classy elegance. In a twist of irony, not caring about outward beauty made her beautiful.
As I grew up, I also watched Mom experience the heartbreak of seeing her own mother succumb to Alzheimer’s. She confided that she often begged God to spare her from the same fate. Once I asked her why she believed her mother had developed Alzheimer’s. I still remember her answer: “I don’t know. Maybe it was to teach others patience and kindness as they cared for her.”
Despite Mom’s efforts to maintain a healthy mind—eating right, exercising, and engaging in mentally challenging activities—she eventually realized that the Jesus who loved her was saying “No” to her earnest prayers.
As Mom lost her short-term memory, she also eventually lost her ability to communicate. She became trapped in a silence that stole her vibrant spark. I couldn’t help but ask God, “Why did this happen to someone so kind and gentle, who taught me so much about love and motherhood?”
My sisters, children, and I visited Mom often at the memory care facility where she lived, surrounded by others battling advanced stages of Alzheimer’s. It was hard to reconcile the memory of my classy, sweet mother with the reality of her condition.
One warm spring day, I sat with Mom at her new home. She wore a velour jogging suit in her favorite color, emerald green. My sisters and I had replaced all her previous clothes with outfits chosen for her comfort and easy dressing by her caretakers.
That day we listened to worship music together, her head nodding to the rhythm and a gentle smile on her face. As I held her small hands in mine, tracing their delicate, wrinkled skin, I thought of how those hands had rocked me and my children, wiped away tears, and held me when I was hurting. I prayed, “Lord, make me beautiful like my mother.”
As Mom and I sat together, the worship song “Give Me Jesus” began playing on my phone. Suddenly, another resident came running around the corner of the building, singing at the top of her lungs,
“Just give me Jesus,
Give me Jesus!
You can have all this world,
But give me Jesus!”
The woman’s uninhibited worship made me burst into tears. This woman had also lost her short-term memory. She didn’t have the self-consciousness to hide her exuberance for Jesus. She just loved Him and wanted to sing about it.
And beside me, my mother communed without words with her Creator, her Savior, her Comforter, and her Friend.
I don’t have all the answers to why God allows the drawn-out heartbreak of Alzheimer’s. But I do know that part of my mom’s beauty has been her quiet spirit, trusting God no matter what.
I still pray for a different path for myself, my sisters, and my children. I hope to evade the shadows of Alzheimer’s, but no matter what, I rest in God’s goodness and sovereignty.
When I was a girl, I chased elusive outward beauty. But the Bible says beauty comes from a different place: “Don’t let your beauty consist of outward things … but rather what is inside the heart—the imperishable quality of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is of great worth in God’s sight” (1 Peter 3:3-4). And Proverbs 31:30 says, “Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord will be praised.”
When my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren look into my eyes, I want them to see a woman whose beauty transcends the fleeting moments of life, rooted in a deep and abiding faith. I want them to see a woman of true beauty, like the woman I was privileged to call mother.
*Photo by Jamie Coupaud on Unsplash
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