God Doesn’t Hide his Face Forever

It’s time for an update on my dad’s situation.

I continue to be very impressed with the ALF where he lives. Every time I mention it to a professional involved with elder care, I am told how exceptional it is. This week, I talked to an attorney about getting VA money for my dad, and when she found out where he was, she told me it was the only ALF in the county with an ECC license. I don’t know what that stands for, but you can Google it and then pretend to be smart in a comment.

The basic idea is that this type of license will allow the ALF to provide care for my dad longer than other ALF’s. ALF licenses mandate that patients be moved to other facilities when they deteriorate past certain points, and all the other ALF’s here would have to ship my dad out much sooner, costing us money and causing disruption.

The lawyer was impressed, and that says a lot, because she was recommended by a friend of hers who runs a competing ALF.

God really looked out for me. I had no idea what I was doing. There are dozens of ALF’s around here. What are the odds I would find the best choice on my own?

Another bonus: just from a free consultation with the lawyer, I found out how to push everything my dad has out of the probate loop, and that saved us a great deal of money plus a prolonged hassle you would not believe. I didn’t know how much trouble we were in, but it’s all fixed now. So far, this has cost me nothing, and when I get together with the attorney again, I don’t expect our remaining loose-end fixes to cost much.

My dad has been stable for the last couple of days. He actually seems somewhat better. Yesterday, he remembered that I had a sister.

He still wastes a lot of our time together trying to work out a way to go home, and that’s unfortunate. By God’s grace, I learned that he changes channels when I talk about people who don’t have his advantages. Many ALF residents don’t get visits from loved ones. Many don’t have relatives looking after them at all. Many are in cheap, dirty, impersonal ALF’s that are essentially warehouses. When I tell him how good he has it, he begins to focus on that, and he regrets complaining. He starts talking about how blessed we are.

He keeps telling me what a wonderful son I am and how much he loves me. It sounds so strange; I haven’t forgotten how the family saw him when I was a kid. He was a scourge. How can that same person be so effusive now? I’m very grateful for the change, however. He could be telling me he hates me and that I’m a terrible son. In other words, he could be like my sister, who has assured me I’m going to hell.

I make sure we pray together every time I sit down with him. It’s something I used to dream about. I am going to do everything I can to make sure he goes to be with Jesus when he dies. That would more than redeem the time and suffering involved in caring for him during his decline.

I’m somewhat less sad about the process of fixing up the house in the wake of his permanent departure. I still don’t like it when I make changes that reflect the fact that he is never going to come home, but I’m getting used to it, and I am comforted by his sudden enthusiasm for prayer. Every parent dies, but not all of them turn their lives around before they go. One day I’ll see him again, in perfect health, with all his faculties.

Because he’s not here, I’m getting on top of things I allowed to slide. I finally got new tires yesterday. I would say the whole effort took over three hours. I had to sit at Walmart and do nothing for much of that time. When he was living here, I would have had to take an Uber to get back to him, and then I would have had to take another one to go get the car.

The first floor of the house is getting cleaner and neater. I can finally say my dad’s laundry is clean. I had to wash all the bedclothes twice, and I kept finding other things, like his bedroom slippers, that needed to be washed. I had to remove the cover from his mattress and wash and dry it over three days.

The living room has been dusted and re-dusted, and I cleaned all the furniture. I shampooed the rugs. Today I opened the fireplace flue to see if I could find out why I kept seeing wasps in the room. A bunch of wasps fell out and landed on me. Thank God they’re not aggressive. I sprayed some poison up the chimney, and I used my new cordless stick vacuum to suck up dozens of confused and possibly stoned wasps. I’m going to make a fire as soon as this hot spell ends. That ought to discourage anybody who is still squatting in there.

Back when I thought my dad’s mattress was hopeless, I ordered a new one from Walmart. When I found I could save his mattress, I thought about sending the new one back, but I decided to keep it for myself. My old mattress is from 1994. Last night I moved the old one to another room, and I put the new one in its place. Very nice.

It must be okay, because as soon as I lie down, I start to fall asleep. I don’t understand that. It may make prayer difficult.

I’m paying more attention to our investments, and things are shaping up. It shouldn’t be long before they become a source of peace as well as income.

I wonder how much of this can be traced back to my baptism on December 19 of last year. Things have continually improved since then. The road has been bumpy, but the upward trend has been consistent. I wonder how many good things Christians have missed out on by settling for false baptisms.

I would still like to get my dad baptized. I do not believe it’s essential for salvation, but it’s clearly essential if you want everything God wants to give you. It would be very hard to baptize him in his current state, especially in the winter.

I watched Derek Prince talk about baptism today. He was a Greek scholar at Cambridge. He said “baptism” meant full immersion or having water poured (not sprinkled) over you. I don’t know if he was correct, but “baptism” is a Greek word, so he may have known something. I can certainly get my dad into a shower and pour a bucket of warm water on him. I don’t want to do it if it’s the wrong procedure. Also, I don’t know if it matters when he’s so close to the end. Maybe we should settle for salvation.

I pray about it. The answer will come.

It’s always sad to think about what has been wasted, and that can’t be fixed, but apart from that, I am very satisfied with the way life is going. I believe it will continue to improve, and whenever I learn something new about God which may help with the process, I will make good use of it.

I think about people who don’t have God to help them. Many people have their lives spin out of control and crash, and they don’t know God will put things right if given a chance. It could have happened to me; I worked very hard to assure that I would be cursed. I’m very glad I received correction. I wish everyone had it.

I’m getting so confident, I may conceivably try to vacuum the pool today, and I may even fix the chainsaw. I can’t wait to be completely ahead of my responsibilities.

If you have problems you can’t get on top of, give God a chance, and don’t quit early. Keep looking for things you’re doing wrong. Keep asking for correction. Don’t mistake obstacles and diversions for permanent defeats; sometimes they mean you’re doing the right thing. God didn’t put you down here to flounder and die. If things aren’t going right, it just means there are things you still need to do.