I read a beautiful story this week about Peter and Lisa Marshall. The way the story began you wouldn’t think there was anything beautiful or wonderful about it.
You see, four years ago Peter was diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer’s. His wife Lisa said she first began to notice something was off when Peter kept losing his keys and his wallet. Then she noticed he would forget words here and there and what they meant. She just chalked it up to the fact that they were getting older. It wasn’t until family and friends started noticing the same things that she became concerned and pushed Peter to go to the doctor and get checked out. He went through a battery of tests. The diagnosis came back: Alzheimer’s.
According to the Alzheimer’s Association (www.alz.org), 55 million people worldwide are living with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia. In the U.S. over 6 million individuals have the disease and 1 in 3 seniors die with Alzheimer’s or some other form of dementia. Alzheimer’s is a progressive disease and starts off with mild memory loss but can progress to the point that an individual completely loses their ability to respond to their environment (www.cdc.gov).
For Peter, the disease had progressed to the point to where he no longer recognized his wife. In one of the articles I read, Lisa stated that there was this one day when she noticed that he began to talk to her in a friendly way but like she was a stranger. They were in the car together coming back from a trip and he began to give her directions to their house as if she didn’t know where they lived.
Things were different after that. Peter was nice and cordial in a friendly sort of way but she could tell that he didn’t realize they were married. It broke her heart. Their first date, their first kiss, their long courtship, the place where he proposed — he couldn’t remember any of it.
But last year something sweet and beautiful happened.
One night they were sitting on the couch watching TV. There was a touching wedding scene in the show they were watching which caused Lisa to tear up. Peter noticed. And that’s when he turned to her and proposed. He pointed to the wedding scene on TV and said, “Let’s do it.” Lisa said, “Do what?” “Let’s get married”, Peter said grinning from ear to ear.
And that’s what they did. On April 26th of this year Peter and Lisa got married all over again. She wore a beautiful dress, he wore a tux. All their friends and family and children were there. “It was magical”, she said.
Lisa said, “It was so touching to me. He fell in love with me twice. I feel honored. I feel like a princess, like Cinderella. I’m the luckiest girl in the world.” (www.cnn.com, July 2, 2021).
As I read about Peter and Lisa I couldn’t help but think of this in terms of our relationship with Christ. There are many Christians who seem to have developed a form of “spiritual amnesia”. They have forgotten the love they once had for God and His Son, Jesus.
They are like those to whom John wrote in Revelation 2:4 saying, “You have left your first love.”
They need to do what Peter did: fall in love again.
Why not?
We know that love isn’t static. It changes over time. It ebbs and flows. Just as any couple has to work on their relationship in order to keep their love alive and growing, so we need to work on our love for Christ.
Maybe that’s something we do every day. Where each morning we wake up and fall in love with Jesus all over again.
Which isn’t hard to do!
I mean, just read Isaiah’s messianic prophecy about the “suffering servant”:
“But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on Him, and by His wounds we are healed. {6} We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:5-6)
How could we not love Him when we see what He went through — for us!
Read through the story of the Cross. From Jesus’ heartfelt prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane to His arrest and the mockery of trials. Hear the ridicule. Look on in horror as He is scourged by the Roman soldiers. Walk with Him to Calvary on the Via Dolorosa — “the way of the cross”. See Him as He stumbles under the weight of the crossbeam He was forced to bear. Stand in the crowd and watch as the soldiers nail Him to the Cross. Then feel the tears run down your cheek as you hear Him say, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34).
How could we not love Him for going through that — for us!
There’s a song we used to sing at Bible camp:
I keep falling in love with Him,
Over and over, and over and over again.
Just keep falling in love with Him,
Over and over, and over and over again.
He gets sweeter and sweeter as the days go by,
Oh what a love between my Lord and I.
I keep falling in love with Him,
Over and over, and over and over again.
Peter Marshall fell in love with his wife, Lisa, twice.
I hope you fall in love with Jesus every day. And the more you know about Him, I know you will.