New every morning

My mother suffered from Alzheimer’s. Sometimes she recognized my sister and me as her daughters; sometimes she thought either or both of us were her sister; other times she met us as people who seemed nice enough but she couldn’t quite recall if she knew.
One positive aspect of this terribly confusing and bewildering mental territory she found herself inhabiting was that every experience was new.
And one thing that brought her enjoyment every morning was the discovery of a delicious food. Her face would light up when she tasted it – a new delicacy, new every morning. She would ask the carers what it was called.
‘Toast,’ they would tell her, every day without fail. ‘Toast and marmalade. Nice and crisp, how you like it, Joan.’
‘Do I?’ She would search the jumbled closet of her memory. ‘Oh yes! I do!’
Next day there would be a new delicacy on the menu. Again, she would be delighted. What was it? Toast? And marmalade! Of course she liked it; she knew she did.
New every morning.
Taste and see that the Lord is good. Always new.
I wish I didn’t forget, but I do. I get spiritual Alzheimer’s about his goodness, his honesty, his reliability. I start thinking as though I have never experienced his help in difficult times and my life depends on my own successes or on favourable circumstances.
Then he gives me a taste of his reality again, in some little detail of daily life, and my tastebuds jog my memory.
God is good. It’s true. I knew I knew it, and now I know it again.
Every morning, new.