Lapse of Memory

I recently came across this joke about little old ladies and memory loss…

Three elderly ladies were discussing the struggles of getting older.

One said, “Sometimes I catch myself with a jar of mayonnaise in my hand while standing in front of the refrigerator, and I can’t remember whether I need to put it away or start making a sandwich.”

The second lady chimed in and said, “Yes, sometimes I find myself on the landing of the stairs and can’t remember whether I was on my way up or on my way down.”

The third one responded, “Well, ladies, I’m glad I don’t have that problem. Knock on wood,” as she tapped her knuckles on the table. Suddenly she said, “That must be the door. I’ll get it!”

It’s one thing to experience “senior moments”—those little lapses when you can’t find your car keys or remember a certain someone’s name. It’s another thing altogether when you can’t remember the directions to the library in the small town where you’ve lived for over 45 years. You know it’s “thataway”—across Rt. 59, on the other side of the railroad tracks. (Now wait, is that right? Or is it located on this side of the tracks?)

Actually, my oldest son has always labeled me “detail ditzy.” And the truth is, I’ve been having “senior moments” most of my adult life. Forgetting where I’ve parked my car outside a shopping center, for instance, or where I’ve placed the book I’ve just been reading or what I did with that recipe card I was using to prepare dinner. You get the idea.

Probably, if I was being honest, I might estimate that a good 10% of each day can be allotted to a hunt of some kind. And if I was being really honest, that seek-and-find effort might take up as much as 15-20% of each day. Believe me, this is hard to confess not only to a reader but to myself.

I often hunt for lost and misplaced items and apparently overlook them where they have been placed in plain sight. But I neatly arranged the books on the coffee table, I think to myself. How did the book I was seeking escape my notice? … Here it is! Right on top!

Sometimes, these days, I begin my searching with a short prayer:

I’m pretty convinced that this prayer certainly helps. I still hunt for lost items, but not as long as when I don’t pray for finding intercession. In fact, I often suspect that the object I am seeking has been slipped onto the bottom stair rung or on the corner of a kitchen cabinet (all spots I’ve already searched) by some merciful but unseen entities.

So, just in case I am heading into a kind of early dementia and my memory lapses are possibly the beginning of losing my mind, I wonder if you would do me a favor. Or pray about whether you could lend me a hand in a few ways?

I need to hire a project manager who can assist me in completing some legacy projects that I feel I must finish before I go (one way or the other). If I take these on, by myself, there will be no time to complete the writing assignments I feel my Divine Editor has assigned me—one being the book on listening, which I actually feel might be the most important work I’ve ever undertaken.

The three legacy projects I need help completing are as follows:

1. The formation of a national platform on Christian hospitality that will design an outreach to teach churches how to train their members to be hospitable. The goal of this would be to create a standard of welcome, invitation and inclusion, and to highlight stories as an idea resource for those wanting to create hospitable ventures. Eventually, the outreach and impact of hospitality could become the focus of a media project of some kind.

I have the names and addresses of all the authors who have written books on hospitality for the religious market, and I will invite them to a virtual meeting to begin brainstorming ideas as to how to accomplish the above goal. As far as I know, my book Open Heart, Open Home was the first and (for a long while) only one in the religious marketplace on the topic of scriptural hospitality. Now there are a good dozen—some of them excellent.

2. A stage production of Tales of the Kingdom, the first book in our Kingdom Tales Trilogy, to be workshopped and put into dramatic form so Christian schools and home-schooling associations can mount it using local talent. This needs to be accompanied by an engaging instructional video so participants don’t miss the theme of the drama: The Kingdom is wherever the King rules and wherever obedient subjects reap the benefit of His rule.

Bobbie Helland has adapted the stage script. David Mains has written the book …But the Kingdom Comes, which is a look at the theology of the Kingdom. There are several family members with multiple Grammy awards and one son with five Emmys who would make excellent consultants on this project.

3. Whoops! Can’t remember the third project! (See what I mean about memory lapses?)

In order to hire a project manager, I will need to raise the funds to do so. (Now things really get complicated.) I figure a gifted person working fifteen hours a week for $20/hour would earn $300 a week. That would be $15,600 per year in a part-time position.

So, I am writing to a foundation with a grant ask for that amount. I have never written anything like this before and am definitely in over my head. (Pretty sure I haven’t written it already, sent it off and forgotten about it!)

While praying about all this, a few long hours in the middle of the night, I heard that clear sure Word spoken to my heart. There is nothing you have to do about this. There is nothing you have to do.

I am resting today in that truth. God is perfectly capable of bringing everything together that I need in order to march joyfully into Heaven knowing that the work given to me to do has been well done. (Or, until I am called Home—to sit pleasantly on some bench humming a happy tune and playing with the kittens—though I might not remember my own name—enjoying a senior moment come to stay.)

Karen Mains

Reminder!

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Hungry Souls Contact Information

ADDRESS: 29W377 Hawthorne Lane
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PHONE: 630-293-4500
EMAIL: karen@hungrysouls.org

Karen Mains

BOOK CORNER
The Memory Keeper's Daughter
by Kim Edwards

This book sat on a shelf, unread, until its title called out to me (since I have been thinking about the vital role of memory in our lives), and I finally started and finished it in a couple of days.

This is a poignant and troubling portrayal of the power of a well-intended lie in two generations of one family. The lie starts as an attempt to protect the innocent—twin babies born of one mother—one of them with Down’s syndrome. The father, a doctor, who attended his own wife’s emergency birthing, hides the infant.

Back-cover copy explains: “For motives he tells himself are good, he makes a split-second decision that will haunt all their lives forever. He asks his nurse, Caroline, to take the baby away to an institution, explaining to his wife that the child died at birth. Instead, she disappears into another city to raise the child as her own. Compulsively readable and deeply moving, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter is a brilliantly crafted story of parallel lives, familial secrets, and the redemptive power of love.”

SPECIAL CHRISTMAS OFFER
(THROUGH DECEMBER 15)

THE "KINGDOM TALES" TRILOGY
by David & Karen Mains

“To the King! To the Restoration!”

It is amazing to us that the Kingdom Tales books David and I wrote about the Kingdom of God are still selling after some 35 years in the marketplace. This prize-winning, imaginative trilogy—Tales of the Kingdom, Tales of the Resistance and Tales of the Restoration—still has a deep ministry in the lives of many readers. One woman recently phoned us to say the books had been key in creating a deep healing between herself and her daughter.

Normally, the Tales trilogy sells for $105 per set—$90 + $15 shipping. But if you order before December 15, we will joyfully make the three books available to you for $75 per trilogy—free Priority Mail shipping—to arrive in time for Christmas giving.

If you'd like to order, and/or if you have questions, email karen@hungrysouls.org or call the Mainstay Ministries office (630-293-4500). Or, send a check or money order to Mainstay Ministries, P.O. Box 30, Wheaton, IL 60187.

These beautifully illustrated stories are a creative mashup of fairy-tale, fable and spiritual allegory and have been beloved by men and women and children of all ages.

Order as many sets as you'd like to give to your loved ones, friends, church, school or public library. David and Karen will autograph each book, and they can be sent to whatever address(es) in the United States you choose.