Tag: Dementia

Links for the Weekend (2026-10-23)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

How Can Heaven Be Better than Earth if We Are Married on Earth but Unmarried in Heaven?

Tim Challies wrestles with Jesus’s teaching about there being no marriage in heaven.

I don’t think we are the only ones who find it hard to take joy in Jesus’s words that “in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven” (Matthew 22:30). If it is true that there is no marriage in heaven, then I may get a few more decades with Aileen as my wife, but will then spend the rest of eternity without her being my wife. In all honesty, I struggle to see how this can be a good thing. We experience such joy together, such pleasure, such friendship, such unity, and each of these is growing with time rather than diminishing. So how can heaven be better than earth if we are married on earth but unmarried in heaven?

In the light of eternity: A wife’s faith through her husband’s young-onset dementia

I was encouraged to read this story of a woman caring for her husband who has dementia.

For a while after his diagnosis, I made monthly Zoom calls to Greg, often including buddies from our college days. It was great fun reminiscing about the past and catching up on what was happening in each other’s lives.

I asked Beth recently if those calls were useful anymore. She hesitated, but admitted that Greg increasingly struggles with any social situation and probably doesn’t remember the calls the next day.

The Glaring Difference Between Being Truly Repentant and Being Merely Remorseful

Here’s a Crossway video featuring Matt Boswell talking about the difference between being repentant and remorseful.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2026-06-19)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Does Jesus Really Expect Us to Be Perfect?

This article examines two of Jesus’s statements in the Sermon on the Mount, about righteousness and perfection.

The statements in Matthew 5:20 and Matthew 5:48 are meant to shock and shake us out of self-reliance and lethargy, but their message is not one of condemnation. Rather, they are an invitation. The problem with our interpretation of Matthew 5:48 is an English one, and the problem with our understanding of Matthew 5:20 comes from not paying close attention to the literary structure. We will examine these problems and their answers in turn.

Dear Dementia

Katie Laitkep shared some moving reflections on the final days of her grandmother’s battle with dementia.

She belongs to Jesus—now, in the struggle, as we wait and watch her sleep, not knowing if she’ll wake again. She belongs to Jesus because she’s believed, by grace through faith, that He is her only hope. He gave her eternal life, and He holds her today. No one and nothing will snatch her out of His hand (John 10:28–29).

Daylilies

Our poem of the week: Daylilies, by Kate Bluett. This spring poem is about flowers, rain, and resurrection.

Thanks to Lorelai H for her help in rounding up links this week.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (2024-06-28)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

‘I Will Not Forget You,’ Hope in the Grief of Dementia

Dementia seems like a particularly cruel disease both for those afflicted and their loved ones. This post discusses spiritual matters associated with dementia and offers some assurances.

As we ride the swells of confusion and sorrow, our concerns turn toward the spiritual. What can we say about a loved one’s soul when he loses all memory of attending church, of reciting prayers, and even of Christ himself? Does God’s grace fade away with memories, shriveling as our neurons thin? Are our loved ones still saved when they can no longer affirm with their words that Christ is risen?

10 Things You Should Know about the Final Judgment

The final judgment may not be a terribly popular topic of conversation, but it is important! This post rounds up some important facts about the final judgment.

If you are in a harrowing car wreck and you come out unharmed and safe, you feel a keen sense of relief and gratefulness that you escaped uninjured. The final judgment shows us what we deserved, what we, as sinners and as those who refused God’s ways, should experience. When we see and feel the glory of God’s merciful love in Jesus, we give thanks for our rescue, just as we are all the more thankful for our health after a ravaging case of the flu. Our escape from judgment should not provoke us to think we are better than unbelievers. Instead, we feel that we are blessed ten-fold in that the Lord has rescued us from his righteous wrath.

Life Without Internet

Our poem of the week: a poem that remembers how we looked up information before the internet.

On the WPCA Blog This Week

This week on the blog we published an article I wrote called Four Precious Promises from God for Everyday Growth. If you haven’t already seen it, check it out!

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here. 

Links for the Weekend (5/14/2021)

Posted onAuthorRyan Higginbottom

Each Friday, I’ll post links to 3–5 resources from around the web you may want to check out.

Even Dementia Is Not Dark to God

This is a beautiful article by Cynthia Fischer, writing about her mother’s dementia and Psalm 139. It’s worth your time.

My mother can’t call on Jesus to help her. She’s no longer clear who he is. She cannot seek God for peace. She cannot pray to him. She cannot cry out to him—at least not in any verbal way. Who among us has contemplated the end of our days and considered we might not be able to pray aloud?

The Missing Conversation in Our Accountability

At Desiring God, Ryan Griffith writes about an old practice called “holy discourse” which may be able to make our notions of accountability deeper, richer, and more effective.

Holy discourse seeks to apply the blood-bought benefits of Christ to the deepest recesses of the human heart. Holy discourse fans zeal for Christ, strengthens understanding of Scripture, reinforces doctrinal orthodoxy, unearths destructive patterns of thought, addresses beleaguered souls, nurtures preserving prayer, bridles gossip and backbiting, deepens compassion for others, and develops skills of soul care.

Your Weird Church is “Plan A” and There is No “Plan B”

We all know there’s no perfect church, but since we see our church up close, we see its flaws and weirdness more clearly than most. Jared Wilson reassures us about our weird church and about how God calls us to this glorious weirdness.

It’s almost like He prefers losers, cast-offs, and ne’er-do-wells. Like He’s recruiting sinners, in fact. God is prioritizing broken people from broken situations to be His chosen emissaries to a broken world. Which means that as weird and messy as your church may be, you are exactly suited to this weird and messy time. There is no other church than your church to be the church to the people in your community. There is no other people than the church to be an outpost of heaven in your city, in your nation, in this world.

Note: Washington Presbyterian Church and the editors of this blog do not necessarily endorse all content produced by the individuals or groups referenced here.