A Little Sojourn...

This morning I sprang out of bed, having overslept.  It is Saturday, a day for sleeping in, but this Saturday morning afforded me the opportunity to sojourn, early, to the regional teaching hospital with a few other women, where a Very Sick Friend had been taken the morning prior. I've written about this friend before--about a year ago she was the subject of my first ever blog post.  She has survived, to date, several crises surrounding her failing liver, and this most recent crisis involves her recently transplanted liver.  Her name is Grace, she is valiant, and she is well named.   

Despite the seriousness of our journey, there was laughter, fellowship, and very honest, probing conversation.  In many ways I was the benefactor of two women who felt pulled to travel two hours north and invited me along.  Those two hours were spent sharing, praying, discussing...singing.  I think the latter was the best of all, trying to remember stanzas of hymns, or any song three women from different faith communities shared in common.  We found common ground in the familiarity of 'It Is Well With My Soul'.  I thought for a moment of the story I have heard about the hymn's origin, and felt a gratefulness that one man's response to suffering was a song through which countless others have been bolstered up and encouraged. 

    

We arrived at the hospital to find Grace, amazingly, lucid and able to receive a few visitors. This was not necessarily our expectation, as we thought we might do nothing more than give Grace's husband an encouraging hug and then pray--in the waiting room.  I watched these two women attend to Grace, check on her husband's needs, so benevolent, so real.  We talked a bit about life, visitors, and songs.  Grace likes hymns.  Then, we sang.  We  sang 'It Is Well With My Soul', and this sweet, Very Sick, very yellow woman, Grace, sang along.  After a bit, we gathered a lunch for her husband, greeted Grace's out of town family members flocking to the hospital, and left. 

We were home before 4:00, and yet it was such a profound time.  I am blessed, humbled, and grieved by the whole experience of today, what has come before, and what may follow.  I am the benefactor of these women and their wisdom, perspective, benevolence, intuitiveness, and ability to balance self protection with reaching out.  Today I was the student on a field trip of life, and when I came home a bit raw and hopeful, this is what I found....