Even when I am old and gray, do not forsake me.

—Psalm 71:18

“Time to read the Bible, Clarence,” I said to my 72-year-old stepfather. My mother had recently passed away and  he was spending  the winter with us. Suffering from dementia, I knew he didn’t understand all I read, but I knew that he enjoyed it.

This morning’s passage was from Romans 8. I looked ahead at all the difficult words: “Who shall separate us from the love of  Christ? …tribulation … distress … persecution … famine …  peril  … principalities.. height… depth…nor any other creature.”

There’s no way he can understand that, I thought. I’ll just read Romans 8:28. “All things work together for good to them that love God”. That’s familiar to him.” But I sensed God saying, “No, read it all.” So I plunged in and read every verse.

When I finished, Clarence sat with a pleased smile on his face. “Nothing can separate us from God,” he repeated with childlike happiness. “Isn’t that nice?”

I suddenly realized the truth of his words. Nothing—not even his failing faculties—had separated him from his awareness of God’s love for him.  “Nobody ever outgrows Scripture,” the noted preacher Charles Spurgeon once said. I thanked God that this was true in my stepfather’s life, and I prayed that it would always be true in mine as well.