(Originally posted on dementialettersproject.com in September 2019)

As care partners, individuals with dementia, and people of faith, we pray. We pray for miracles of Biblical proportion, and the size of a mustard seed. We pray Novenas, clutch our rosary beads as we say the Chaplet or Mysteries of the Rosary. We pray, and we hope, and we pray some more. What happens when our prayers go unanswered and no amount of increase in prayer seems to give us an answer? As care partners, we seek healing, rest, guidance, and support. We may pray that God takes away our pain, the dementia, the physical trails, the uncertainty of what each second brings, our financial worry, our exhaustion. We seek out new Saints or prayers. We up our attendance at church or try extra hard to not drift off in prayer. We try to find a way to force ourselves to trust in Jesus, wondering if maybe that was the “problem.” Yet, that prayer we feel with such urgency is followed by silence. What do we do?

I don’t have answers for you, I feel and understand your pain. We continue in hope, trusting that something will work out. We continue to pray, to connect with others, to get out of bed and take one more step, and work to find ways to help ourselves and others. Even when running on empty, it is amazing the power of our faith. We march on. We find community. We look to God with tears in our eyes, and we pray. He knows what is in our hearts, and the plan He has for us. He knows the path you have taken, the mistakes made, the trials and triumphs. He knows the path forward. 

As people of faith, whatever your faith denomination maybe, I say to you, I am here, but more importantly, God is with you. ALWAYS! 

Continue to Pray.

Find community, someone to sit in the pew with, to pray with, to share your emotions and pain with from time to time.

Start Spiritual Direction, someone to help guide your faith and prayer.

Find someone living on the path of dementia, and create a text prayer chain or start a support group.

Pick up a copy of the Peace with Dementia Rosary book mentioned back in the spring.

Find a Catholic Therapist or one that will respect your faith to see regularly, or simply have in your Rolodex. 

Contact me, reach out.

We are together on this journey, seeking God in all things and in all moments. When He is silent He has not gone away simply changed the way He is communicating with us. 

“Blessed be God in all His design.”