If you saw my bio yesterday, you would have read that my husband and I have the honor to pastor some really cool people. As part of giving God our yes in this season, I make a stop at a local skilled nursing facility every Monday to visit with an elderly member of our congregation who has lived there for just under a year. In the beginning, the visits were easy conversation but dementia has set in rapidly since January, and very rarely does she even know who I am anymore. As an RN who spent a lot of time with the geriatric population this is not difficult for me to navigate. I go wherever she goes. Some days we are young friends in grade school and other days we’ve had a long day working in the bank. My husband is bi-vocational, working a secular job in addition to being a pastor, so he has only been to see her twice since she was admitted. It has become a running joke between us that no matter how much she has seen me and how little she has seen him she always remembers him, even when she forgets me. So much so, that on a day when she could barely form two thoughts let alone remember who I was, she called out to me before I exited the building, “Be sure and tell Josh I said hello!“ It’s really uncanny. This has been the case for months now, but only recently has Holy Spirit revealed a spiritual parallel to me.

While she doesn’t recognize me anymore, she recognizes who I am attached to. When she looks at me, she doesn’t see me anymore. She sees the one I’m in covenant with… And that’s how it supposed to be between us as believers and the world. The one whose mind is broken and confused, should be able to look through the mist of life and recognize their savior when their eyes lock with ours. Just like when my friend with dementia fails to see or recognize me but is still able to recognize that I am married to someone she does remember even though she hasn’t seen him.

If everything else was stripped away from us, would the lost still be able to find HIM while in our presence?

“Let them see you in me

Let them hear you when I speak

Let them feel you when I sing

Let them see you

Let them see you in me“

JJ weeks Band