Beyond healing

"But Zion said, 'The LORD has forsaken me, the Lord has forgotten me.'

'Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you! See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.'" Isa 49: 15-17 (NIV)

My mother's Alzheimer's continues to progress. Each time I see her she seems to shrink a little. There are simple things that she used to do that she no longer does. Sometimes it takes a few minutes work to get a spark of recognition. Yet, somehow albeit down at a visceral level, she still seems to know who I am. She would never say my name. If anyone asks her who I am she replies "I don't know". Yet her eyes light up when I talk to her. She giggles with me as I gently tell her stories from her past. She happily puts her hand in mine and walks with me - or kisses me on the nose as I lean forward to her.

Over the last few weeks I have been quite low - my thoughts and faith spiralling slowly round this single question. Do I believe in a God who can heal and yet chooses not to? Because if he cannot heal then he is not God.

This morning's sermon was some comfort. Isaiah 49 - an ideal passage for Mothering Sunday - seems tinged with bitter irony when faced with the reality of Alzheimer's. And yet it brings me back to the cross. My name, my mother's name, carved on the saviour's wounded hands. It makes me look back at the prayers that have been answered. Yet it is small comfort for the ones that have not...