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He Prayed with Me
While sitting at my desk and writing (my usual daily posture), I received a call on my cell phone. I didn’t recognize the number, but it wasn’t labeled “Scam Likely,” so I decided, what the heck, who’s trying to aggravate me now . . .
When I answered, the first impression I had was that it was a marketing call of sorts. The caller, a fellow, asked if I had completed the survey from Advent Hospital for my recent doctor visit; I explained that I’d had so many visits lately that I had no idea. (I did try to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.) So he told me the name of the doctor, whom I recognized, and I told him the visit went just fine (since, although the doctor gave me more bad news, he did it kindly).
And then the caller surprised me. He explained that he was a chaplain and pastor for Advent, and that since so many of us had been struggling lately, he wondered if that had been my experience. (I suspected the man had been reading my Ricochet posts or had ESP.) Then again, who in the world isn’t suffering in some small way? Before I could answer him, he asked if I would like him to pray for me. And then he waited for my response. I said I’d be glad to pray with him, as long as Jesus wasn’t involved. (It was not one of my better days.) I explained that I was Jewish, so if he could do a “Jewish prayer,” I would be open to that. He said, of course, and then he said, let’s pray.
And I have no idea what was in the content of the prayer, but it was kind and loving and I felt tears in my eyes. I sensed that even though it was his job to call me (checking on my non-completion of the survey), I knew, just knew, that it might have been a pretext to call, and that he wanted to offer me the opportunity to pray together and be comforted.
It was sweet and lovely, and I thanked him.
And I didn’t let his inquiry if I would complete a brief phone survey on our call change my impression.
Business, you know.
But it took nothing away from our time together. I felt blessed and comforted.
Published in General
Parentally accurate.
Yeah. Somehow, “hey, mom” might work for the woke, but not the rest of us.
Off-topic, I recall my sister going to some English department retreat in the nearby mountains to discuss poetry around a campfire or some damned fool thing. The poorly-draw flyers had soviet-abstract third-grader illustrations of women’s bodies covered with stars arching over the hand-lettered page. And I think the artist had been wearing mittens, but that’s just a hunch.
I told her it looked like a bunch of dykes were testing a new euphemism ‘roasting marshmallows’ for whatever it is they get up to. Silly me, what do I know about anything, that’s not what this is about, etc…
She came flying out of those mountains after sundown and was home* by midnight. She was gracious about me being right :-)
* I had been staying in her living room for my uh unexpected emergency last semester of university. Had gone back to selling blood plasma for gas money to stay in class.
This doesn’t sound like what I want to hear. Have I missed out on something that I ought to know? I had assumed you are getting better and better, just like your avatar.
No, you haven’t missed out on anything, Ret. But I’m starting to think that some of the problems I have are interconnected, and with several doctors involved, I don’t know for sure. And then other conditions show up. My gut feeling, though, is that some assumptions I’m making might be correct, in which case we would be heading in the right direction. I’ll know more in the next couple of weeks.
That’s a relief, sort of. Thanks for the update.
Thanks so much for your concern.
Absolutely yes! You’re one of the good guys Susan. Bless you.
I loved that story Susan and appreciate your sharing it. Years ago, I was very sick and in the hospital for I think 16 or 19 days. This was Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. I was in good hands, but it was a very scary time. A chaplain came around also, and visited and prayed for me, and left me a beautiful little prayer card. It made a huge difference in how I felt.
At one point, on my way to another test as I was puking in a pan (sorry), I started bargaining with God – please get me out of here and I’ll change my ways……..or if I don’t make it out, please forgive me of anything I may have done or screwed up. I made it out. I’ll never forget how much the chaplain’s visits made to me.
When I make my hospice bereavement calls, the people I speak to often have such praise for the chaplains who helped them. They can play a very special role in the healing process. Thanks for your story, FSC.
Hi, Susan… thanks for sharing that. Seemingly little things can mean oh so much. I’m sorry you’re not feeling the “epitome of health and energy” anymore. I can identify. Because I come from a military background and it’s still a major part of my life and work it has not been so easy to take.
I agree with Seawriter. I personally have never been offended by anything you’ve ever said while discussing your faith. In fact, I was actually thinking about you over the weekend in the context of good Jewish-Christian dialogue. I was listening to Pope Benedict XVI’s “Jesus of Nazareth” over the weekend. He spends a lot of time discussing Rabbi Jacob Neusner’s book, “A Rabbi Talks with Jesus.” He addressed many things point-by-point from the Christian perspective, so of course there were disagreements, but on the whole he was very impressed with Rabbi Neusner and mentioned that his book is “by far the most important book for the Jewish-Christian dialogue in the last decade.” I listen to a lot of podcasts and lectures but I very rarely listen to audiobooks. I like to read and do it very slowly with a lot of highlighting, notetaking and stopping to contemplate. I was unable to do that since it’s an audiobook so I plan to go back and listen to it a few times as it was fascinating to me.
Thanks so much for all your points, Chris. I would like to think that when I share my faith, I never mean to suggest that my faith is better than anyone else’s. In fact, I admire anyone who has committed to a faith and works hard to practice it sincerely.
Thoughts and prayers, my friend, thoughts and prayers. I so wish we were able to be there this coming weekend and could hug you in person. I agree with Retic, BTW, you have been looking really good.
To address you original point: I think it’s lovely that the hospital chaplain called and offered to pray with you. That’s such a human and humane response from what, I’m sure (being both employee and patient of an academic medical center) is a mostly dehumanizing process. I also think the stupid survey is one of those processes. Really, just how does a “satisfaction” survey address the myriad aspects of a good (or, for that matter, bad) medical interaction. If your disease is incurable, is that the doctor’s fault? I’d suspect diagnosis of an incurable disease would leave a patient unsatisfied. Again, not the doc’s fault; should he or she be penalized with low rankings? I’ve also been seeing too much of too many doctors lately and have ignored all of the surveys. In general, the questions are asked too soon or in too broad and general terms. Too much in medicine is being done for people other than the patients and their caregivers (not “providers”!) and I’m just unwilling to participate.
Bottom line, good on Advent for a well thought through and executed follow-up.