“When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.” - Isaiah 43:2
In heaven, there are no ho-hum people
Like so many people of my age, I have spent a lot of time in hospitals, not just as a patient but as a visitor. In those times I have never failed to learn something, either about myself or about life.
Just last week, while visiting my 86-year-old mother-in-law, I heard a booming voice coming from a room down the hall.
“You know what the doctor said to me?!” a crackling male voice called out. “He said everyone should be as healthy as I am. I’m 80 years old. Can you believe it; 80 years old, and look at me!”
A little while later, while pacing the hallway, I heard the same voice bellowing from behind me, “You know what the doctor said to me? Everyone should be as healthy as I am. Guess how old I am! I’m 80 years old. Blood pressure’s good. Cholesterol’s good. Just have to lose five pounds. Everyone should be as healthy as me!”
By then, I had turned around to find the person behind the voice and saw an elderly gentleman in jeans and sneakers talking to a nurse.
I also saw a few of the more aware patients in nearby rooms shooting him some questionable glances, and it dawned on me that his proclamations of health could be unsettling to those patients who were suffering or incapacitated, or facing a difficult transition to a nursing home. In all these cases, the suffering would not just be physical, but emotional as well, with each patient having to come to grips with an aspect of surrendering to age. Unlike the spry 80-year-old in the hallway, they were forced to give up some, or all, control of their lives.
But then there are those who have learned that accepting the reality of change or suffering or surrender, while usually painful, is also a means for growth.
Like Sylvia, the 92-year-old amputee who I met in one of my hospital stays. With a portable oxygen tank hooked to her wheelchair she would often slip into my room to check on me, to offer words of comfort or just to “shoot the breeze.” This woman was anything but healthy but she could light up a room in an instant with her smile and her attitude.
She never talked about her health, unless someone asked, but loved to share her memories. Nurses had to stop her from trying to get on the elevator to go down to the snack bar. One of her favorite quips was, “If diamonds are made under pressure then I’m a 10 carat at least!” And that was the truth!
While she hadn’t overcome her illness in the sense of being healed physically, she had overcome her suffering by accepting its reality, moving forward and embracing the blessing that is life.
Famous American author Helen Keller, who was also the first deaf and blind person to graduate from college, once wrote, “Although the world is full of suffering it is full also of the overcoming of it.”
When I think of all the amazing people who have influenced my life I realize how many of them, including my father, had been people determined to overcome their struggles and their suffering.
I imagine that without the struggles we would be a ho-hum people — pain free, perhaps, but certainly not wise or compassionate or, even, interesting.
Certainly, among the communion of saints, there are no ho-hum people. They are people who, through the power of faith in Christ, moved through each moment of suffering with hope in the resurrection; people who, like Sylvia, recognized that new life happens, not just at the moment of death, but with every waking moment.