Years ago, I did quite a bit of staffing for a north Indy hospital named St. Vincent. It was a great hospital and I have many stories of my experiences there, working with them to staff their administrative needs as well as some of the lab positions and other “behind the scenes” positions.
In fact, as a patient, I had my gall bladder removed there on June 12, 1984. During the surgery, there was a power failure in the hospital as a result of a horrendous thunderstorm. The generators came on and they were able to finish my surgery before the regular power came back on. Whenever someone in our family has a need for some sort of healthcare, you can bet that there will be extenuating circumstances.
Well, Thursday evening we had a need for the hospital once again. In fact, it was more than a trip to the emergency room and we ended up having to stay the night. Undoubtedly, I will write about the details of what happened in the future, but the purpose of tonight’s post is that I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the hospital still hasn’t lost its commitment to caring for people, for prayer and for taking care of their brothers and sisters in Christ.
After finishing in the ER and being ushered to a room, we spent a somewhat hectic night with various protocols including blood draws, taking vital signs and recording meds as well as other medical details. Both Janet and I were restless throughout the middle of the night and as there was a shift change for the nurses at 7:30 A.M., we were awakened to start the day.
I am used to hearing messages over the public address system but as the clocks indicated it was 8:00 A.M., a voice came over the loudspeakers and started to pray. It was all through the hospital – and this is a large, well known medical center. The prayer included words of comfort and encouragement for patients, petitions for medical staff including doctors, nurses, tech people and everyone else who works there and, finally, blessings for the people who were family members and friends of those who were recuperating or undergoing procedures that day.
I was honestly touched by the boldness of their spiritual convictions and their willingness to ask God for blessings and help for all of us in the hospital – regardless of who we were or how we got there. It brought back memories from as far back as 1984 when we helped staff that very facility and I was a patient myself.
Tonight’s verse is from the book of James. He is a bold writer and calls us our to confess to one another in the name of healing. James tells his church, and us, in James 5:16, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”
My encouragement this evening is that it is wonderful to see God’s people pray for one another and to boldly profess their desires for God’s provision. My prayer is that God’s hand will provide divine healing for each of us when the need arises and that we may rest and be grateful for the intercession of the Holy Spirit to pray for us when we are so distraught or tired that we don’t even know what to pray for. Have a great day in the Lord, grace and peace…