Topped Off
Exhausted,
I went in search of coffee. That's when I saw her.
Maybe
my age, maybe younger.
She
pushed a walker and haltingly stepped . . . stepped . . . stepped
While
sporting her stylish boots, fleece-trimmed jacket, and dyed
auburn-red hair.
Feeling
so fat-producingly fatigued and washed out, I bee-lined for the
cafeteria’s coffee machine
Only
to find one machine out of order and the other out of coffee.
BIG
sigh.
“Is
the cappuccino working?” the stylish walker-lady asked me.
She
had finally made it into the cafeteria only to find no rewards for
her effort.
No
I said. Nothing is working.
“Oh.”
She seemed tired . . . like me. And disappointed.
Follow
me, I said. I’m going upstairs to the Atrium where there’s coffee
in the afternoon, I said.
We
rode the elevator to three. She talked about her tumor on her spine,
about her never-ending pain, about the many doctors, about the
mountain of medicine.
While
waiting on our coffees being prepared by the Atrium’s good-natured
and beautifully smiling workers, the walker-lady told me her age--six
years younger than me.
I
immediately recognized my survivor’s guilt and pushed it back.
She
told about her home being broken into twice, about now having to move
into another home with a new person, about children who don’t talk
to her, about ten grandchildren.
I
saw the grey at her part in her hair. I saw the gold sparkle in her
long nails. I saw the tears welling up and spilling over.
“I
just wish they would take the tumor out. One doctor said maybe
instead they will take a disk out and fuse my neck. Another doctor
said just take the Oxycontin. I don’t like taking it. Makes me feel
bad.”
How
long have you been sick I asked.
“Ten
years.”
Tears
ran down her hollow cheeks. I gave her a napkin from the dispenser
next to the cream and sugar.
Our
coffees came. She looked at my badge. “So you are a pastor? Would
you pray with me?”
Before
she asked I sensed our “chance” encounter had The One Who Sees’
hand on it and on us.
We
sat down with our coffees. I told her a story about another woman who
had been sick for twelve years, spent her savings and something like
the home mortgage on doctors, and still grew sicker by the day. Told
her about the sick woman reaching for Jesus, about Jesus stopping and
healing the woman, about the woman's life being transformed as
well as healed.
Then
the walker-lady stretched her sparkly gold fingernailed hands past
her coffee and grasped my hands.
I
prayed for physical and spiritual healing for us both. God knew the
ways we needed his healing, needed him.
She
took the elevator and slowly walked out the front door in her stylish
boots, fleece-trimmed jacket, and auburn-red dyed hair.
I
walked down the three flights of stairs back to my office to drink
the coffee. I was still tired yet gently refreshed.
“But
He told me. . . ‘My power is strongest when you are weak. . . .’”
–2 Corinthians 12:9
