By Amy Butler
I’ve heard it told that some pastors really like to make hospital visits.
Me? Not so much.
It’s not that I don’t understand their purpose in the larger scope of my job; of course I do. I’m not really annoyed by the time hospital visits take, though they often involve much of a day traveling there; parking; convincing the hospital staff that no, really, I honestly am the pastor even though you don’t think I look like one; navigating the halls; visiting; navigating back out; sitting in traffic — those things are just part of life. And it isn’t even that I’m squeamish at the sights and smells of hospitals; they don’t bother me all that much.
I think what puts me off, if I’m being honest, is that during hospital visits I tend to encounter people at their most vulnerable, folks who are walking much closer to the edge of this human illusion of we’ll-all-live-forever-and-life-can-be-pain-free-amen. Thus, it follows that if I can steer clear of hospitals it’s a little easier to avoid thinking about things like pain, disappointment, broken relationships, death. Call me crazy, but I like avoiding those things just as much as the next gal.
Alas, there’s really nothing I fear more than disappointing people, so if you tell me that making hospital visits is part of my job, well, I will do it. I will. I remembered the other day, though, the strangest thing. Every single time I go to the hospital to visit someone — and I do mean every single time — there’s grace. Not absence of pain or tears or even death, but grace. And though I am technically the one who is supposed to be reminding everybody else, it’s always me who inevitably is reminded.
It happened to me this week.
I found myself in the dark, overly warm ICU room of a woman doing the hard work of dying from cancer. As it happens when cancer is part of the equation, she was very, very weak, had a hard time opening her eyes, and took labored breaths when she could. Her grip was strong, though, and she held on tight to my hand.
As usual, I couldn’t think of the right thing to say. I inevitably sifted through my mental notes from seminary and found, yet again, that no one ever told us: “When you’re in the ICU and someone is dying of cancer, you should always say….“ So I chatted a little about the weather and the youth group trip to Passport and her family. Then we prayed. And I wanted to say something else — I don’t know, just a little something that she could hang onto, that would give her comfort through the hard things ahead.
So I just said the first thing that came to my mind, which was a mantra I had been repeating to myself the whole entire time: “Jesus is here. Jesus is here, you know. Jesus is here.” Her eyes opened then. Her grip on my hand tightened even more. A wide smile filled her gaunt face. With dancing eyes and a note of happy incredulity in her voice she said back to me, “Jesus is here!” The next few moments we just smiled at each other and let her words ring in our ears, washing over us both like the most comforting balm.
And I stayed until she slept, exhausted by the visit and the pain. As she drifted off I heard her whisper one more time, “Jesus is here,” and she fell asleep with the most beautiful smile on her face.
I left the hospital then, back to the kind of hectic life that helps me forget the inevitability of death and suffering and pain. I suspect that no matter how deeply spiritual I ever become, facing all these things in hospital visits may never rise to the top of my list of favorite job responsibilities.
But there’s no doubt that, even though visiting the hospital may be one trip I avoid as much as I can, every single time I am touched by grace and surrounded by reminders of God’s presence. And when I leave, I notice that I never leave God there. He comes with me, too — so that, for example, for days after that recent hospital visit the memory of her peaceful smile and the words we shared kept coming to mind. “Jesus is here. Jesus is here.”
Indeed, Jesus is here. Thanks be to God. Amen.