I Don’t Know You But I Love You

Her name was Helen. She is in Heaven now. She was the kind of person that would make you say - “If she doesn’t make it there none of us will.” I was her pastor in the twilight years of her life. We became friends for a few years and then her memory began to escape her. Her family had to make the hard decision to place her in a facility that could cater to her new needs.

Not long after she arrived at the memory care unit I went to visit her. She looked the same. I looked the same. But everything was now very different. She had no recollection of me. We sat and talked and she kept asking who I was. I would tell her and then she would forget again.

The conversation was strained to say the least. We had little common ground anymore. I was thinking to myself that I was wasting my time. As soon as I left I figured she would forget that I had even been there. After a brief time I headed to the door.

When I grabbed the handle to exit her room, she looked at me from the sofa and said words I will never forget. She said - “I love you.” Now she had told me that before. Helen was a loving woman. But this time it was different. It hit me like a ton of bricks. She loved me even though she didn’t know who I was! It seemed that in that moment God spoke to me saying - “Hey Shivers, that’s how you need to be.”

I don’t know you, but I love you. What a world this would be if all of us were like that. I called it good prejudice. This world is filled with bad prejudice, but if all of us had good prejudice and lived by the motto - I don’t know who you are but I love you - what a world this would be.

It took a lady who had lost her memory to make an indelible memory on my life. I don’t know you, but I love you.