washing feet

Last week at work, I was helping a particularly difficult elderly woman to bed...just for some history, this job has been quite a challenge. Most times, I feel like I'm in way over my head. When everyone around me has been captured and ripped apart by dementia, it is hard to feel like I'm not going to lose my sanity. It demands patience and compassion that I have never had. God has brought me to my knees so many times over the last six weeks, making it more than obvious to me that without Him providing every ounce of strength, I will not be able to serve these people's needs...or capture their hearts.

Back to Melinda. A vibrant, witty, and successful woman in her younger years, she seemed to be able to steal hearts and light up smiles with contagious humor and larger than life attitude. She was dedicated and passionate- a teacher, a wife, a mother... Now she is a widow and forced to succumb to years of cancer, parkinson's disease, and dementia. Caring for her is more than challenging. Her condition has ripped her to pieces. She is 95 pounds. Frail. But her personality can be a monster sometimes. Her words still have the ability to drip with sarcasm. Her comments are so often demeaning, condescending, and ugly. I was getting so discouraged working with her. Her words pierced my sensitive heart. Each day before I work, I try to remind myself that it is Melinda's disease, not her, that is talking. But it doesn't change the nature of what she says, especially when it turns to her actually attempting to choke me or break my hand. I'm not kidding! This woman is more than difficult!

But then, last Friday, when it came time for me to help Melinda to bed (a task which had turned from bad to worse on my past two shifts, causing me to have to leave the room and ask for help), I prayed for patience, took a deep breath, and entered Melinda's room. I started asking Melinda about college, poked some fun at the fact that she went to CU and I am a student at CSU. She liked that. She actually smiled a bit. So we kept talking. I was on my knees in front of her, just looking into her eyes and listening to a bit of her story. Minutes passed as we SLOWLY but surely took baby steps to get her ready for bed. (Melinda moves on her own time. In a job where it seems like you never have enough time to help anyone, Melinda demands ALL your time, and she HATES to be rushed) Melinda could never be pleased, and the fact that she wasn't retaliating verbally or physically, but instead actually carrying on a pleasant conversation, was something I considered to be a HUGE success!

After 45 minutes of tasks it would have taken an average human being 10 minutes to complete, I asked Melinda if I could help her into bed. She looked at me, and without hesitation she put her arms around me and said "You did good, tonight. Thank you."

I stood there, floored. Melinda hugged me. Melinda thanked me. A woman who is never pleased, whose expectations can never be met, who I thought hated me, had just put her arms around me and squeezed me gently with strength I know she barely had. It was an absolutely beautiful moment.

But God was just beginning to soften my heart and bring me to my knees this night...

Melinda had asked me to wash her legs with a warm washcloth, then put lotion on them. It was a nightly ritual that helped her to relax and keep her fragile skin from breakdown. Knowing Melinda is rarely pleased, and knowing that dementia makes a person's moods more volatile than any metaphor I can even try to come up with, I took extra steps this night to hopefully keep Melinda in a pleasant and peaceful mood. When I began to rub down her legs, I could see Melinda relax, and I felt tension leave her legs. I asked her one last question, and as soon as the words left my mouth, I felt my heart fall to its knees...

You see, I asked her if she wanted me to wash her feet.

My own words seemed to echo in my head. ...wash her feet...

Melinda didn't answer me. She had already drifted into a peaceful sleep. I stopped what I was doing and thought about this moment. God could not have made it more clear to me in that moment what His purpose was for me since the day I started working there. I stood at the foot of Melinda's bed with tears in my eyes. But this time my tears were not from discouragement, but from being overwhelmed by the way God had chosen to teach me compassion and humility. I was in awe of how God reaches so far to get to my heart and never gives up on me. And He made it so plain that I am not to give up on people He asks me to serve, no matter how difficult and unpredictable they may be.

The truth is that Jesus would wash my feet... even if my words were hurtful and my heart unthankful. But there is His grace. Grace that saves me every minute of every day from the trap of my pride. When I lock myself up with my selfishness, I miss out on learning more of who Jesus is. But in moments like this, He grips my heart closer to His, stops me from wandering back into a cage of self-protection, and pushes me out to serve without thought to whether I will be hurt. All that matters is that I go all in and love His people, whether they are young or old, capable or frail, intellectual or confused, abusive or abused.

Loving people like Melinda is not an easy task. But then again, it wasn't easy at all for Jesus to love me. He had to die on a cross.

The beauty of God's love, grace, and mercy overwhelmed me.

And I finished washing Melinda's feet...