Originally published May 15, 2026 for our weekly Issue of Mindful Intelligence Advisor. Subscribe to get weekly issues.
By Bill Collier, Publisher
“The more your own suffering blots out the suffering of others, the more likely your suffering will overcome you.” – Paul Gordon Collier
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God.
Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” – Romans 5:1-5
- NOTE: This Final Thought combines two short essays from our publisher, Bill Collier, who also happens to be an Alzheimer’s treatment advocate. His wife, Dora, passed away in 2024 from Alzheimer’s. As she felt herself slipping, she made one request, make sure to utilize her illness to help others and testify to the glory of Christ.
The first essay is about remembering that witness she called Bill to share, and the second one is how to be a good Alzheimer’s healthcare advocate for your loved one.
Sometimes Satan is allowed to inflict suffering on the Elect for reasons that serve the Kingdom but yet we may never be able to understand those reasons in this life. In my case, the worse example is what happened to my precious and most beloved wife, Dora.
Dora suffered the rare affliction of Alzheimer’s starting to steal her mind from her at only 50 years old. On top of this, the medical system I experienced failed her utterly. She was accused of lying about her condition to defraud the government through a disability claim.
This meant that between August 2015 when it appeared she had a stroke, until March of 2021, I had no diagnosis, no treatment or medicines that would help her, and no real coping mechanisms because I was trying to help her recover from a stroke and the sudden onset of “catastrophic anxiety” (her initial diagnosis).
I do not know how this could serve the Kingdom, beyond enabling me to carry out Dora’s wishes that I utilize her sickness and our unwavering faith in Jesus to help others and to show how real our God is, even through such straits.
I have surrendered. I still sometimes want off the altar, but my dream is that my entire existence would be rendered a living sacrifice to God in the service of His Kingdom, regardless of what I may suffer.
Losing Dora like this was not just or necessary; the medical system failed us bigly, and now I get to promote early detection and treatment of Alzheimer’s.
It would be Dora’s wish, and mine, to help others avoid the suffering Dora had to endure.
By the grace of God, this has even reached the ears of people with resources to back such efforts that are reaching millions of people every month.
The message is getting out and policy makers are taking notice, private corporations are reconsidering our approach to cognitive diseases and the quality of life for both the sick person and their loved ones who care for them.
I do not know if this happened so I could reach millions of people and possibly see real changes, I just know it DID happen and our faith remained intact until the end AND it continues within me now.
When I fear losing a bid for a contract or having to deal with smears and attacks on my reputation, or just failing at a project, I consider this: I survived, faith intact, the death of my wife and nothing, not even my own life, was more precious to me, outside of God Himself, than Dora is to me, both when she was present in the flesh and now that she is with the Lord, who Dora deeply loved.
If I suffer as an innocent person, or even if I suffer owing to a mistake but the “consequences” are disproportionate and unfair, I know I have my reward awaiting me.
I have seen some hideous things people of faith have suffered, real damage that some never recover from all their days, suffering they did not deserve.
I consider then what happened to Dora and me, and I realize that if I don’t find my joy and peace in Christ alone, then joy and peace become a weapon designed to force compliance with the world.
Do we want to suffer?
No.
Will we suffer in this life?
Yes. And it may often come in ways that make no sense. It may come in ways that defy explanation. We find ourselves not understanding how this could possibly be good for us. And yet it always is good for us, in terms of eternity.
I am still suffering and yet I still have joy and peace, and I am still engaging and dreaming with my family and friends, still striving for greater things (like our Hope Estates project).
Who I am is between God and me alone; He knows me better than I know myself and He loves me more than I could love anyone, more than I loved Dora, more than I love God. I will never be able to match what He has done for me and what He is doing within me now.
If tomorrow I lost everything, if someone lied about me, if I became sick, if the economy tanked, or any other disaster were to happen, what carried me through the very worst scenario I could have imagined was my relationship with Jesus Christ and His love for me.
I have always known these things as truths, like “the fellowship of His suffering“, and to fall in love more with my eternity than my present.
Yet, after this previously unfathomable trial, it is now known experientially, in a different way, as a feeling, as a fellowship of all who have suffered, as well as with Jesus, who suffered more than all of us together.
It has a different energy and effect within me now, this knowledge of being heavenly minded while still also being used to do good on this earth.
That feeling of being heavenly minded is now more powerful than the actual suffering endured.
I am certain the future will bring me suffering, although the worst kind is an accomplished fact of my story. I am not afraid because that which I feared the worse has already happened and I did survive that.
Dora went to heaven, she is gone from this earth and that will never be OK with me, but that pain exists within love and faith centered on Jesus Christ, and thus He bears it with me and for me and binds my broken heart.
At this point anything else I suffer is less than what has already occurred.
We must endure and strive and understand that we don’t not need to understand, nor can we truly understand why God utilizes us, even through a spectacle of suffering. Yet we always have an unshakeable understanding that God loves us and that this will help us eternally if we remain on the altar, a living sacrifice.
AND NOW, HERE’S WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP YOURSELF YOUR LOVED ONE RECEIVING ALHEIMER’S MEDICAL CARE.
If your loved one is in a medical, care, nursing, or memory care facility it is important for staff to see engaged family and friends who are always watching how they are being cared for.
A few things I did:
- Tell their story. Make sure the staff knows who they were before they got sick or lost cognitive functions. I told Dora’s story and humanized her, showed pictures and told stories about her in her prime
- If you can, hire outside help to also monitor their care. I was able to work with a rehabilitation service provider and her doctor who would visit the site, and later our home. Staff would sometimes see these providers multiple times a week.
- Be as present as you can be. Sometimes it’s impossible to see them, but make a habit of many appearances. I visited Dora often to take her out into the world as much as possible. I formed new memories from those days.
- Try to be thankful and appreciative of the time you have. Once you have a loved one in a care facility, you know time is not your friend.
Enjoy whatever moments you can, work to find ways to have those moments, to show them your love and to receive it from them. My wife only stopped saying, “I love you” on the day before she died.
- Do not let guilt haunt you when necessity requires this. It tore me up that Dora would not be living with me in our home. I only ever wanted her to be with me at home. But I knew that memory care was the best way to give her a good quality of life.
Do what is necessary and do not feel guilty about it. If people want to judge you over such an awful necessity, then they aren’t your people.
Losing Dora to this disease, early onset Alzheimer’s, remains the hardest blow I have ever received, and I am still hurting because of it.
But I have no guilt over how I cared for her or when I had no real choice but to send her away to memory care. I did eventually bring her home, and it wasn’t easy, logistically. I felt her being home was the best option for her quality of life as she could no longer do the rehabilitative stuff that could only happen there.
You have to step outside of your feelings and learn to put yourself last and how to be perfectly happy with that.
Anything else just seems crazy-making. When you lose them, it will be harder if you didn’t appreciate them as much as you could every day you had with them. Treasure every “I love you” and every touch, every connection that still exists.
If you learn to appreciate those last connections deeply and focus on that more than the suffering and the problems, you will have something precious when they finally stop.
I have no regrets. I can honestly say I appreciated every day I had with Dora since the day we were married. Even then, I understood that all things are temporary and must be appreciated in the moment. I learned not to take life or people for granted.
If you have a loved one in a care facility and you know that time is ticking, then try to appreciate whatever connections you can maintain with them, even if they forget who you are, even if it is one-sided.
I chose to love Dora regardless of what she could or couldn’t do in return.
I never faced Dora forgetting me, but I had assumed I would eventually, so I reveled in the time I still had, and in my case that never happened.
She passed away giving me a sign that her hands are still holding me, that she still loves me. Her final moment was pure love for me.
But I never assumed it would be like that. I just assumed she would forget who I was long before she could have even had such a powerful moment with me. That I received this gift at all is just an unexpected bonus.
Just focus on the moment you have with them in front of you.
Make decisions around what is best for them and possible for you, knowing you will probably never be able to do all you wish you could do; and that your choices may range only from hard and painful but necessary to very hard and more painful.
That’s the reality of such care. It’s best to accept it honestly and without fear. It’s best to focus on your love for them and to maintain whatever connections you can maintain.
