At times, I
have felt like a rejected door-to-door salesman visiting new patients at
Missouri Baptist Health Center as a volunteer for the Pastoral Care
program. From the very start of each
visit, I get a strong impression of what the response will be as I share my
information about spiritual offerings.
Despite the clear occasions of rejection, there are always moments that
make me so glad that I have come to do this every month.
Today’s
highlight—and possibly this year’s top encounter—came about mid-morning when I
walked into a room where two patients were happily visiting seated across the
room by the window. I knew these women
were both the patients because each one had on a highly fashionable hospital
gown. The younger lady, in her
mid-fifties, quickly let me know that her roommate, an impressive 91 year- old,
had significant hearing loss. We
proceeded with my efforts to talk louder while we all got a little better
acquainted. Both women were quite
cheerful and obviously enjoying the visiting going on.
People have
such interesting stories and some can be quite moving in different ways. The lady closing in on 100 shared just a
little, mostly praising her hard-working doctor. Life had been rather eventful for her
roommate. After 28 years with a St.
Louis company, both she and her husband were fired right after the new owner
took the reins. She was about to go home
from the hospital after a relatively minor procedure, but there is a larger
health issue that is being monitored.
Not exactly where she expected to be at this point in life, I would
imagine.
However,
along with her husband, she is moving to a new city and making a new beginning. Part of the draw to this particular Midwest city
is that a daughter and her 14-month old child are already living there. I felt like saying, “You go, girl,” but that
is not really something I ever say. What
I did do was cheer her positive outlook, commending her moving on and looking
forward, not back. Part of my enthusiasm
for her attitude stems from my own job loss, a part-time position I had been in
for 19 years, now four years ago. I
referred to this as getting “deleted” from the screen. She seemed drawn to this computer analogy maybe
because she was a computer whiz in her former life.
When I walk
out of a patient’s room, I usually make a short notation on the printouts we
are given in preparation for the short totaling slip we fill in before we leave
the hospital. Standing in the hall, I
overheard the ladies’ continued conversation and thought about how great it is
that someone experiencing such undesired work and personal circumstances was so
ready to be kind and compassionate to a woman who had been a stranger no more
than a day earlier. Surely this “adoption”
is part of what Jesus describes when He explains how He separates the goat from
the sheep as those who see a stranger and “take” them in (Mat. 25:34-40).
I have
commented on more than one occasion that simple kindness is a highly underrated
virtue. One of the first things I
noticed when I met the man our daughter married was his kind and gentle
manner. Today’s encounter with these
women was another time I was struck by this quality in others. In Psalm 19:1, the firmament is described as
the “handiwork” of God. I would add that
kindness from the heart expressed from one person to another is certainly God’s handiwork, also. Both can be beautiful to behold.
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