God in a Shattered Mind

I transport patients with a variety of mental statuses. Some are near asleep, some are in a presistant vegitative state, some are groggy, some are grouchy, some are elateed because after the exam I take them to, they get to go home.

I transported a woman who really wasn't all there. She could talk, but her thoughts were extremely tangential, and she often kept asking me where we were going. I would explain to her again what procedure we were going to. We passed the hospital chapel, and her eyes lit up. She sat up straighter in the wheelchair and said, "You know, God doesn't want religion. He just wants people to love Him and His Law." The rest of the way going to the exam, we talked about who God was, she listed off the 10 commandments, and we talked about how much we loved God.

Through this, I saw past this woman's shattered state of cognition into her spirit that God had probably pruned (Jn 15:6) and sanctified over a lifetime. For a Christian, the body does deteriorate, but what remains is the soul wrapped in the glory of God. The grey matter of one's brain looses mass, the neurochemicals may be at a lower concentration, the neural pathways may start to become more disconnected, but the love for God was not present in this woman's mind. It was present in her soul, for she had accepted Him as her Savior, and in keeping His commands and remaining in His love, it was Him that sanctified her - and it was evident that He was her reality when she could make sense out of nothing else.

I look forward to the day where we may meet again in the new Creation, with whole bodies, but more importantly, in that unity with Christ that, by her love that reached beyond the capacity of her mind, she gave me a mere glimpse of.

Oh, God, may I love You so much more, that even when my cognitive abilities fade, my heart for You remains. I can't imagine the type of faith, love, and obediance this woman had toward You. May she be an example of what I hope to be - broken yet completely Yours.