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