August 12 - “Passed in the elevator”

Two more days until my birthday.  WooHoo.  One year closer to … next year.   I had an interesting experience the other day at the hospital.  I was going up to see one of the folks from Seaside.  She was on the tenth floor of the hospital, so I dutifully entered the elevator and made the trip.  I found the room she was supposed to be in.  And it was empty.  That's not so unusual in itself.  People in hospitals have all sorts of reasons for not being in their rooms: walking around the floor, off to a test, in the bathroom.  As is my custom, I looked around for the nearest nurse.  They are the ones who know what is happening in the hospital anyway.  About the time I began my scan one of the nurses had obviously begun hers as well, watching for incursions into her domain.  We made eye contact and in her nursely way she recognized that I was involved in a search as well.  She spoke before I could.  "Are you looking for the lady who was in that room?"  I responded in the affirmative.  "Well, you just missed her.  She went home."    Well, that's good news, right?  I never consider missing a patient because they got sent home a bad thing or even a waste trip.  That is nothing but cause for rejoicing.  As I pondered my response of thanks, she quickly added, "No, you don't understand.  I mean you just missed her." (emphasis hers).  "She just entered the elevator not even a minute ago.  You had to have passed her in the elevators."   Now I've heard that expression a lot, but from the urgency in her voice, either she really wanted to get rid of me or she really thought I could catch the patient before she got picked up at the front.  Or maybe some absurd combination of the two.  Either way, I got the message and rushed back to the elevators.    When I hit the ground floor I began my scan once again.  And sure enough, standing next to the wheelchair she was supposed to be occupying and talking on her cell phone, was the lady in question.  She was not in the hospital anymore, so she returned to being a lady, right?  I hurried over and gave her a hug and waited for her husband to arrive with the car to pick her up.  She introduced me to her transportation escort as her pastor, and he immediately became all smiles and quite verbal about the goodness of God.  It's so much fun when a closet Christian gets "permission" to be himself.   Proverbs 22:2 says, "Rich and poor have this in common: The Lord is the Maker of them all."   Father, thank you for being active in hospitals.  But then you always said you came to be where the needy ones were.  Amen.