Light in Dark places
It was a sunny, but cold, day outside for my repeat visit to the hospital. The woman I was visiting had been in the hospital for over a week now. I walked in expecting her to be a little downtrodden and depressed. After all, being in the same room while being poked and prodded for over a week can be a bit distressing, not to mention just being in the hospital alone being distressing.
I prayed before going in the room to be a person of peace and hope. Then steeling myself, I walked in to find this woman sitting up with a smile on her face. She was not like that a week ago! One week prior, she was anxious and in pain. Now she was smiling, sitting up next to her bed. She greeted me as you would welcome an old friend into your own house.
Over the next forty-five minutes or so we would have a conversation I could only describe as divinely inspired. Jesus was in that room, and we were awake to His presence together. We talked about her care by the excellent and professional hospital staff. She mentioned that so many of her caretakers were “young people.” After this experience, she has so much hope because the young people she was around were so compassionate with her. We talked about her husband who was having health problems of his own, and her concern for his peace. Her goal was to get back to him to live out their days enjoying each other and the Lord.
She told how a brush with death has reinvigorated her life and how grateful she was for the experience. We talked about the mercy of God. She told me that she knew intellectually about God’s mercy but never really thought she needed it for herself. Yet, this season of life had brought her acutely aware of God’s mercy for her. She even began praying for the people on her hospital floor to receive the mercy of God.
We prayed together. We laughed together. We cried, and even sang poorly and off-key. In the midst of that, I could hear a whisper in the back of my head, “where two or three are gathered in my name, there I am as well.” I am grateful for those moments where I am fully aware of God’s presence all around me. Often that awareness is in my brokenness or being with people in their brokenness. God is not afraid of the dark, and when we open the eyes of our hearts, we will see God’s light in those dark places.