When unexpected events change what you are praying for. 

While being transported to another hospital there were so many thoughts going through my mind. I had to make myself relax and let God do His work in this unexpected situation. Because for months this certainly wasn’t what I had been praying about. Living in Ohio was a result of my daughter-in-law’s family living here. So naturally, when my son retired this was where we were to call home. We’d been living here for nearly twelve years at this time.

But I had been seeking the Lord about opening up a door for us to move back to Florida after her family had made their unexpected move there. Consequently, we were the only part of her family still living in Ohio. I understood that not having her family here now, she would also want to leave. It really was all right with me and certainly my son as well.

Sometimes it felt as though we had been living forty years in the desert like the children of Israel. It wasn’t home to either my son or me. We were used to the southern hospitality that was sorely missing where we were currently living. With the news that she was eager to move, I fell right into wanting the same thing but for far different reasons. I wanted to go home. Home for me had been around the northern part of the state. I had friends there. Friends that I missed tremendously. A couple in particular that I had recently reunited with was making missing them increasingly harder every day.

As a result, these thoughts had been monopolizing my thoughts daily. We had caught up with one another and been back in each other’s life for about two years and the friendship was as sweet as it had ever been, in fact, I think even sweeter. After being on Facebook and using its message portion daily, Marie and I had rekindled our close-knit friendship as if we had never been apart. Her daughter, Teresa, and I shared the same sort of friendship, laced with a deep affection based on our common faith. God had made us prayer partners, agreeing as touching prayer partners.

Sadly, during the last two years, Marie had become ill and passed away leaving a massive void in the lives of everyone who knew and loved her. A void that it would take many people to fill, if at all possible. She was the hub of her family and the vast community of friends. We weren’t sure that space would ever heal. This left Teresa, her daughter, and I to solidify our bond even more out of a grief that is almost at times inconsolable. Thus, we were praying for my return daily. We had been praying about my return to Florida, perhaps even in or around the same area when I now found myself being shuttled to a hospital late in the evening. Neither of us saw this coming.

My thoughts were interrupted when I felt the ambulance making its turn into the Emergency driveway. I had to bring my mind back to the present moment. I had to begin to listen to that comforting voice I was accustomed to hearing that I know as the Holy Spirit.

It didn’t take long for them to get me settled into my room and begin to assure me that I was in good hands. I knew the Hands that I was already in, but I welcomed the human hands that would be taking care of me also.

Reassured that I was going to be well taken care of, my son was convinced to go home and get some rest. He had worked the prior day and now had been up for over twenty-four hours. I was safely somewhere that if the bleeding became too profuse again there were people around me who would help. Once he was assured, I let myself begin my conversation again with the Lord.

Laying in bed, I took a really deep breath and exhaled as much of the dread of being swept up in the medical world as I could. Hadn’t God spoken to me that He would show me that He could overcome any system? I, being a nurse, myself, was a little in doubt. I knew what it was like. Everything takes time. You have to learn that in the world it’s ‘take a number’ and wait. With the recent outbreak of Covid in our country and around the world, take a number had taken on a much different meaning.

Medical staffing was hard put to be as attentive or answer the many call lights as quickly as usual. I prided myself on being a model patient. I was cooperative and knew that I wasn’t going to be the only one needing attention. That night I resigned myself to doing exactly what the Lord had told me to do—trust Him. Therefore, I relaxed and let myself drift off to sleep; no sense in both He and I stay awake.