Today I visited Alice

Today I visited Alice, she is in a convalescent home recovering from a broken leg. She was out feeding the birds in front of her home when she stepped off the sidewalk and tumbled over breaking her leg. She is use to moving and so being stuck in recovery away from home is really tough on her. She was telling how it felt like she was serving a jail sentence and she has served two month's time. She has been battling depression and has felt abandoned by God. She looked at me and said, “Pastor why doesn't God answer my prayers and let me out of this place, I feel like he has abandoned me here.” As she was talking I started to look around the room. On the bathroom door hung a reef, covered with colorful spring flowers. A table in the corner had three empty vases on it. Her desk was covered in cards and several church bulletins were visible. As we were talking another couple came to visit and we all sat around her bed.

I asked her about the reef she told me how a friend Joyce from the church had made it for her, it was beautiful and she explained her love for spring and the flowers. She was getting visibly excited as she looked towards the vases and told about how different people had brought her roses and other flowers. She looked at the cards and told me about the cards and how different people had brought her bulletins from church. She told us how her daughter has made sure she had clean cloths and how Charlotte who leads the hymns in our church came by and they sang together. She named all the people who had come to visit her and how great it was to see them.

After she was done I looked around and asked her if she still felt abandoned by God? She looked around and said, “No, he is with me”. I also handed her a card signed by the men in our prayer group and told her we had prayed for her this morning. She was overjoyed and asked me to thank each person on the card. I share this story to remind you to pray for those who are older and struggling to heal in homes, facilities and feel alone. Alice is bless to have so many care for her, many seniors have nobody. Secondly, when you feel abandoned by God, pause for a moment and take an inventory, I bet he is closer than you thought.