Hospitals...sigh.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
As of right now, I am in Clayton, GA and have been here for a while. It was a day where I didn't have far to travel, so I wanted to take advantage and meet some people.

I'm struggling with how to start this post... For a long time, I have reflected on Christ's teachings and the call to action that is so prevelant in scripture by Jesus, himself, along with the writings of Paul. In Matthew 25, Jesus talks about the sheep and the goats and how one group fed, clothed, took care of and visited, "the least of these brothers of mine." Anyway, I see these teachings, but look at my own life and don't see a lot of action involved in my faith, so I am constantly challenged by the words of Jesus.

Anyway, I just returned from a hospital. With my free time, I decided to find a hospital and ask if there were any patients that didn't have a lot of visitors. So, I showed up at the door and one of the volunteers pointed me towards the nurses station. I told them what I was up to and they said, "visit all of them!" Well, I walked down the hall and stopped in at one man's room. His name was Lenard and he was a cancer patient which I soon found out. I could tell that he didn't want company too much and by looking in his eyes, I could see the despair and pain. He was an older man that was very closed off. While asking questions, I did find out that he used to work construction finishing off houses and building cabinets. I did not feel a push to talk to him about religion and when his food came, I asked if he wanted me to stay and talk or not, and he said "no." So, I said "I'll be praying for you and God bless you, Lenard." It was a strange, awkward encounter, but one that gave me still another picture into the eyes of those we are called to love.

After leaving Lenard, I walked down the hall a few rooms and found this lady, Nazarene, who was much more willing to talk with me. I found out she was originally from Wisconsin, but moved to Georgia because they had good work for homeless people. Apparently, she was poor and was cleaning hotels and doing farm work, until she had health issues. While talking with her, she made some comment about witnessing to people, so I pushed her a little bit and soon, we were talking about religion. I found out that she believed in "the Almighty." It is tough for me to sum up what we talked about, because we talked about a lot, but she had some strange beliefs that I pushed her on a little bit. She did believe in Jesus and she did believe in creation and how we are supposed to take care of our own section of it, but she wasn't so up on the whole loving your neighbor thing. I asked her if she had a Bible and if she read it, and she did have one, and she had read it before, but she doesn't a whole lot. To me, Nararene seemed a little crazy (literally) and she didn't know a lot about the Bible or what it said, but she had a lot of the basics. Before I left, I asked if I could pray for her, and she said that was alright so, I prayed for her and then said "God Bless you and I hope to see you again when the Almighty comes to refine his creation and make it new." (We talked about refining and the end times quite a bit.)

Before I left, there was a volunteer who had helped me find the nurses station and he asked how things went. I said they went pretty good and then he asked me why I was doing this. This is the question I live for! Well, I told him straight up, "I'm a Christian and I believe that Jesus Christ came to love the hurting and the afflicted, and there are no more hurting people than in a hospital, rest home or prison, so that is why I am here." He loved that and thought it was so awesome that someone to do that and before I left, we exchanged, "God bless yous." and then I headed out the door.

That was my experience for the day and I just pray that somehow, the Holy Spirit worked in the volunteer, the nurses and/or the patients today. Give praise to God and go out into the fields, for the harvest is great, but the workers are few!

God bless you all!

Tim