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I am glad to see this thread is still active.

I'd like to know if others have seen what I have seen from my several times of being in the ER or other situations in which someone was about to die.

Not everyone dies the same. I've noticed that Christians die better or more at peace than unbelievers or those who were Christian in name only.
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if only my mom could remember she was religious. she doesn't respond to any religious comforting comments I make. it just doesn't resonate with her. edit, she seems more interested in wanting to get out and go shopping. and that's ok. I understand shes changed, its not her fault.
meh, wish I could delete my post.
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Wally,
Can you give Mom a cross to hold?
Whoever God is to her, He will remember her.

Thank you for your post. I have wondered about Christians having dementia or Alzheimers, and they get mean to their family. Their brain is broken. We talk about our christian witness, and the patient's witness is toast.

I no longer attend church, and no one is ever going to be saved because of my life today as a witness. But I can still pray.
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Cmagnum,
It does not necessarily follow to live better, is to die better does it?
A very interesting conversation you have brought up.
Is it covered under: "The rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous?"

I want to go out singing His praises. I should learn to sing, therefore.
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no it wouldn't help to give my mom a bible or a cross. but that's ok. I know you are trying to help! !

its just that I know my mom would care about religion if she could. if I gave her something religious to help she would say thank you. and then stick it in a drawer some place. she just doesn't know. and I know god doesn't blame her.

grrr I tried for 5 min to hit the edit button and would not work. grrr
I wanted to add. and now I cant even remember what I wanted to add LOL
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It matters what you believe, Wally.

I agree, God does not blame her.
Hope that I did not offend.
It is so hard to know what to say to anybody on a public forum.
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I vowed to stay away from this thread but cmag's comment got stuck in my mind. I imagine true believers of any religion are more at peace with death, not just Christians, and there are certainly those Christians who have been taught to fear hellfire and damnation and greatly fear death because they convict themselves and feel unworthy. And then, unfortunately, there are the poor people like wally's mom who have totally lost their former religious conviction due to brain injury and dementia. And perhaps many of those "Christian in name only" are just seekers who tried earnestly to find their way to god but never were able to overcome their doubts.
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I'd like to share my experiences on this topic. My Mom was a devout Christian all her life. She used to go to the Sunday morning and Evening services, taught Sunday school and went to bible study every Wednesday evening.

When she could no longer drive in her mid 80's she stopped going to church but watched church programs on t.v.

When her dementia started I noticed she didn't bring up God in our conversations much anymore. In fact, I would try to get her to open up about it but she never would. When her mind really started to fail her and we had no choice but to transition her to an Aging care facility I deliberately put her Bible and her Daily Bread devotion book right on her bed side table. I could tell when I came to visit her that they hadn't been touched.

So fast forward to the week before she went unconscious and spent a week in the hospital before her death. My very last visit with her in the nursing home I had brought her a new Daily devotion book and I turned it to a comforting story that I thought might help her. Just before I left that day I said to her "Read that!"
My last conversation with her on the phone before she became unconscious and I never got to speak with her again she said "Incidentally, was it you who brought me the Bible and devotion book?" I said yes. She said "thank-you" It was right after that, a week later she died.

I truly believe that whatever she read in that book helped her in some way to come to terms with dying and brought her some comforting closure. I know this inside of me. I can't explain how I know, I just do.

Do I believe that every Christian just happily sails into death without a worry? No I don't. But I think if you feel in your heart that you are right with God, your maker, whatever you want to refer to it as, you will have peace in your heart when you die.
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Gershun: We worry because we are mortal beings. But anyone who comes to Jesus and believes that HE can take away the sins of the world, shall have salvation, if only they come to HIM. So yes, you are very much correct.
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Let me say this. Good deeds do not get you to Heaven. If you accept Jesus as your saviour, you will have salvation for Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
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Wally, if your mother accepted Jesus as her saviour and it sounds like she did when she was of lucid mind, then she will be Heaven bound when the time comes.
By the way, there is a time limit on editing or deleting on this forum.
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Wow, I have missed a lot. So glad to see you all communicating about this.
I am going to a funeral tomorrow. This was a lady who was a devout Christian, and ended up with Alzheimers after being in a bad car wreck. This woman was never the same, but she knew she wanted to go to church, and she would recall at random times things about Jesus Christ. But, her mind being as it was she also suffered severely from sundowners and her personality would change for the negative. Not her fault one bit. And God knows that, and I do not believe she will be punished for the things she did being out of her right mind. God knows the thoughts and intent of the heart, I have no doubt this woman will be in Heaven. And her DH although grief stricken, is comforted by his faith and knows the same, that her suffering is over.
God does not expect more than we are able.
I do agree as it says in Romans 10:9-11, John 3:15-17, and so on, that Faith in Christ is how we obtain salvation. It is not of works lest any man should boast.
However, faith is an action word and as we read in the book of James, we must put our faith into action. Because an inactive faith is a dead faith.
Wally,
If your Mom was a believer, she is still a believer. God knows and I believe she will be judged on her life pre-illness, not after. She cannot help what it is now. I still want to encourage you to try and take her to church and read scripture to her, or whatever you can just to keep her spirit fed even if her mind is not receiving it, her heart is.
May God bless you all!! Always seek the truth.
As LL said, Jesus is the way the truth and the Light.

And No man cometh to the Father but through Jesus.
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My dear Smeshque: We rally! That's what we do here on this forum. I am so sorry for the woman, a wonderful and Godly woman. Now I am attempting to compare notes to my SIL, Cathy's early onset Alz. In order to help her I would have to drive through the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel. I just can't stand by and do nothing; that is not my nature.
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Smeshque: Thank you for making the correction on my error for Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Light. One can be Good, but lest we be careful not to put ourselves high up on a platform, for only HE can accomplish that. Our sermon last night was about leading people to the Lord as we know HIM and others may not. I have difficulty with that. In fact, I live with someone who had Catholicism pushed on him. It made him turn away so I must lead by example, hoping that he'll follow. The sermon was also about how the "10 % of the people do 90 % of the work," That has been amended and not in a good way. 7% of people do the work. Herein lies the problem---many of the parishioners are aging, myself included. Therefore, NBT (Neighborhood Bible Time) is a methodology the church uses to bring teens to church, hoping that one day they will be the new workers. Spreading the gospel is difficult if one does not want to hear it. We need bus drivers, Sunday school teachers, ministry teachers, childcare providers, choir members, tithing escalation and so much more, else the church, as a body and a business, fails. People have left to find other houses of worship for their own personal reasons. One cannot be bitter as the Lord does not like wrath, strife nor bitterness. We build each other up as one body, one church, and one GOD!
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LL- I understand. It seems that God has become "uncool" or "old fashioned" and people, especially young people don't want him.
But, If they only knew the amount of love it took for Jesus to leave his perfect home, to walk this earth like you and I , to be spat upon, mocked, denied, betrayed, and then to have nails driven through your hands and feet and to hang there to die, for us a bunch of ungrateful humans. If only they could know that love, then maybe they would love HIM back.
I never want people to come to love Jesus out of fear of hell or punishment, I only wish they would love him because he loves them and no one will ever love us as much as he does.
It is sad that people are searching for this "happiness" and will never find it, because HE offers and is the happiness and love that we so desperately seek in one another or in this world.
If only they knew. We try and tell others as often as the courage and boldness is in us to do so. We often fail, because our humans get in the way. It is tragic how bible believing congregations are getting smaller and smaller. Getting left for huge "churches" that offer entertainment as opposed to doctrine. The bible says they will have itching ears. Wanting to hear what pleases them. We always want to be around someone who will just support us in whatever we do in life, we never want to hear that maybe what we are doing is not good for us. It is so very sad to watch the decline in true believers. And it is such a blessing when you come across one. But, The church will never fail. Because the True body of Christ will always exist until He returns.
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John 14:6 New International Version (NIV)
6 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

John 8:12
 Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.
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Send: Oh, I am so delighted that you wrote that the same way I did. I dislike erring, but no one except Jesus was ever perfect.

Two of my favorite scripture verses are those!
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Smeshque: It's not so much about being cool or not being cool. It is a fact in any given job or task, even those working for the Lord in a church setting, that only 10% of the people do 90% of the work. Our pastor has said that figure had been amended to 7& of the people doing the work. So what does that mean? It equates to those people having to work even harder as they are now doing 93% of the work!
There are people who have much wealth, yet are scripturally poverty stricken.
Our pastor spotlighted certain people whom he thought had served the church for MANY DECADES. IMHO, he shouldn't have done that because although he offered up apologies for not including some (myself included for I sent out 1,000 care pkgs to ministries the church has), but he spotlighted one woman who seemed to have "come out of the woodwork." I do not want to be put on a high platform, but for a pastor to put people on that was an error in judgement. But he, himself, is not God. Others may say to us "come this way for I offer you better doctrine." We must be cautious to guard our hearts. No every one person will agree with the Pastor of a church 100% of the time.
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There are some people in churches who are

"11 About this[a] we have much to say that is hard to explain, since you have become dull in understanding. 12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic elements of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food; 13 for everyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is unskilled in the word of righteousness. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those whose faculties have been trained by practice to distinguish good from evil." Hebrews 5:11-14.

And that not always their fault either.
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I had been out of agingcare for a long while and just read the recent activity on this thread. I think it is very important to discuss the fact that some (many) of our elders may become or rather act as not religious as a result of their mental decline related to aging. In some cases it’s not even necessarily mental decline per se, it is simply that life becomes almost unbearable with all the illnesses, pains, limitations, loss of control and the realization that, unlike younger people, they have nothing more to look forward to other than basically death. It isn’t pretty is it? Many of them have depression and anxiety. And all of this happens when a person is at their weakest point, when the strength in all senses fails!

Should we be concerned because they are not as religious as they were before, or that now it is the “the real” them who is acting? Well, I think it matters just because we wish they at least had God when they need Him more, which is a lot to have and really all we need. And about the “real them”, it is for sure not what we see at their weakest point as humans.
From a “salvation” standpoint, maybe we in our human capacity are not able to understand a lot about life and less about death, but God knows everyone of us, even before this world became our home, He knows every inch of our strength and our weaknesses, He knows our suffering and how that suffering has affected us, our lives and minds, He knows how much we believe in Him and how we have lived our lives trying to follow His footsteps...in our right mind, when we were in control.

I actually believe that people that are not Christians but live a righteous life are more than welcome into the Lord’s arms when their time comes! Because what really counts is what we do, not what we say.

The Lord is wiser than what we may conceive Him to be, we are limited when He is perfect! So, for all out there concerned about the elders with a weak mind not seeming to be as much as a believer as they were before and even changing behavior for worse, remember it is not what we do when we are not really conscious and alert what matters, it is what we have done when we knew, how we lived and how we believed! He loves us, understands us and forgives us, specially for what we do when we are not the ones we once were.
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I believe God knows our hearts and our needs. I have felt His comforting presence at times in my life when I couldn't even articulate the words to pray. I believe it is the same with our loved ones. He is there with them on their journey, even when they get to the point that they can't comprehend it anymore. His arms are still around them, and us too.
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cmagnum: Well said!

Matthew 10:29-31 – "Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows."
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Frazzled: That is so true as proven here____
2 Peter 1:4
"And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires."

Jeremiah 29:11
"For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope. "
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Rosses: You are spot on accurate! When I had to live out of state taking care of my late mother (yes, I had to leave my Maryland home and move in with her where she was living alone by her own choice in Massachusetts), I had a Christian friend back in Maryland say to me "you should lead your mother to the Lord." My response was "My mother has been going to church since she was 15 years of age when she took herself and her young sister and now she is 94. My mother is now legally blind, has A-Fib, Congestive Heart Failure, frequent UTI's, incontinent both ways, arthritis and very low blood pressure (60 over 40). I am sorry, but you don't know my mother (said me to my friend)."
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The LORD taketh pleasure in them that fear him, in those that hope in his mercy.
Psalms 147:11
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Ephesians 4:29


"Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear."
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LL- If only we could always do that it would be wonderful, wouldn't it?

“Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need.” 
Hebrews 4:16
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Greetings to all. I am just checking in and wanted to share that I read the 144th psalm after I read my 143rd which is a regular read. First time I read 144th, it was amazing. I was on train reading and all I know is I just kept shaking my head.

So here I am just checking in and smiling and shaking my head again and again. I love the Word, and I love to learn. This is a great and well needed forum. Thank you for sharing your wisdom. It does sink in.
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Duck- It is wonderful to hear from you. Psalms 143 is one of my favorites and regulars as well. It has got me through a lot of difficult times.
I love the word too and it is amazingly powerful. Glad you are smiling, you deserve to smile, and that makes me smile.
Love when you check in. Love seeing you grow. :) A Beautiful flower in a world of weeds.
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DDDuck: The book of Psalms was written as a book of poetry. Aren't they all beautiful, each and every one?
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