Looking Back at Two Days

Looking back to Friday's doctor's appointment and spending time with the Waiting Room Gang.

I usually bring John, plenty of reading material, a snack, my phone, and now, plans for a walk. I hadn't planned, or was sure I wanted to, make new friends in the waiting room. Some of the other patients might be pretty sick, and I wasn't sure I wanted to hear about all their struggles. (I am reminded of a study John and I led last year, A Mile in My Shoes: Cultivating Compassion by Trevor Hudson. I did not expect to connect so closely. )

But sometimes we do chat, and this past Friday, after John left to do the wedding, a couple asked if I had children and how old they were. So I moved closer to them. Including patients and support persons, there was a whole little group. Sometimes we paid attention to the TV nearby, including a news item that Randy Pausch, author of The Last Lecture, had died. I knew something about it, but had not read it. I asked them if it was very depressing. They said it was very uplifting. But of course, it was very moving. I commented that we all know this life does not last forever. And one responded "And we knew it a long time ago." Tears came to my eyes and I brushed them off my cheeks. A few more overflowed. I am usually pretty chipper there, but I realized my feelings, in general, must be about skin-deep right now.


Looking back to Saturday evening's sermon

John connected two texts: one was "Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you." (Matthew 7:7) The other was about Abraham taking Isaac to be a sacrifice, and then God providing the lamb. I thought as I listened, that questions may come out of our situations (other worship practices may have included child sacrifice). But God provides the answers. (No, God did not want child sacrifice as part of their worship.)

Always, God provides the answers, whatever the source of the questions.