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Isaiah 46:4 is a promise God makes about his own faithfulness to those who can no longer maintain the relationship: "even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear." A parent with dementia may no longer be able to pray, to remember Scripture, to recognize you, to sustain faith. But the God who says "I have made" does not require the creature to maintain their end of the relationship in order for him to carry them. What God made, God carries — even when what he made can no longer remember being made.
Get These Verses Daily — Free“And even to your old age I am he; and even to hoar hairs will I carry you: I have made, and I will bear; even I will carry, and will deliver you.”
God's carrying is not conditional on the person's ability to participate in being carried. 'I have made' — the act of creation establishes the relationship. A parent who can no longer remember God is still being carried by the God who made them.
“Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.”
God's record of a person is written before they are formed and does not depend on the person maintaining it. The complete record of your parent — who they were, who they are — is held in God's book, not subject to the erosion of dementia.
“For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
The list includes 'things present' and 'things to come.' Dementia is both — a present reality advancing into a harder future. Neither the current losses nor the ones coming can reach past what Paul declares cannot be separated.
“The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.”
The grief of watching a parent disappear into dementia is a specific, ongoing broken-heartedness. The Hebrew qarov — 'nigh' — means physically near. God's proximity is specifically to the broken-hearted, not to those who are coping.
“For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”
Paul describes the outer person decaying — phtheiro, progressive destruction — while the inner person is renewed daily. For both the caregiver and the person with dementia, what is deepest is not what dementia reaches. The outer person perishes; the inward person is held.
Psalm 139:16 contains a remarkable claim about God's knowledge of a person that precedes and outlasts their own self-knowledge: "Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were written." The Hebrew golem — "unperfect substance" — is raw, unformed material. God's knowledge of a person begins before formation and is written in a book that does not fade with the person's memory. The person your parent is being reduced to by dementia is not the total record God holds. He holds the whole.
Romans 8:38–39 lists the conditions that cannot separate a person from God's love — and notably includes "nor things present, nor things to come." Dementia is a condition of the present that is progressing into the future. Neither the present loss nor the further losses coming can reach past the love Paul describes. Your parent in the late stages of dementia is still held by what cannot be separated.
Commentary is from a charismatic Protestant perspective, drawing on KJV text and public-domain sources including Spurgeon, Andrew Murray, and Matthew Henry.
The lament of Psalm 88 ends in darkness with no resolution: "darkness is my closest friend." Unlike most lament psalms, Psalm 88 does not turn toward hope or praise. It ends in unresolved grief, directed at God. This psalm is in the canon because unresolved grief directed at God is legitimate and heard. For families watching dementia progress, the grief does not resolve. Psalm 88 gives it a biblical place to live.
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