From Our Pastor's Pen

As I sit down to write this newsletter article, I have just come out of the July meeting of the Member and New Member Care Commission. One area of this commission’s focus and responsibility involves keeping up to date with the various concerns (health and otherwise) of members and friends of the church.  For example, this commission is responsible for setting out the Cards of Caring on Sunday mornings so that you can express your loving concern to those who are sick, have had surgery, or perhaps have experienced the death of a loved one.  So it was with these kinds of things in the back of my mind, that I began to think about what I would use as an August newsletter article.  Call it a “coincidence” or a “movement of the spirit”, but the first thing I came across was the following article from “Seasons of the Spirit.” I hope that by reading it, you will do two things: 1) You will remember a time when someone reached out to you with “Healing Affirmation”, and 2) That you will look for opportunities to do the same for someone else.

“Healing Affirmation” by Deborah Patterson

About a month ago, I fell on my stairs as I was coming down for breakfast. My feet flew out from under me, and I landed on my spine – a true accident in every sense of the word. A trip to the ER – 12 hours and 12 thousand dollars later, I learned that I had fractured my L-2 vertebra and damaged surrounding tissue. The trauma surgeon said that I would be off work for three months, the spine surgeon said, maybe only 6 weeks. They gave me a heavy dose of narcotics, a prescription for more, along with a variety of other medications, and sent me home to settle into a recliner, saying, “Better go home now. It’ll get worse before it gets better.” It did.
It was winter. It was cold. It was dark. The seminary where my husband was teaching was not in session, which was a blessing in that he could be home for a time, but the campus was deserted and lonely. And then, the doorbell rang.
            One person came and brought a gift card for casseroles at a local caterer from my colleagues at work. Someone else brought soup. A third kind soul sent over a chicken casserole with her husband. A day later my church family arrived, with a prayer quilt and a promise that meals would keep coming. And they did. Our parish nurse arrived, checked my medications, and alerted me to a developing allergic reaction to the medications, among many other helpful things she did. A friend took my son shopping for an item he sorely needed. The kindness continued.
            This was a humbling experience for someone who is usually on the other end of the helping. As a clergyperson who works with parish nurses, I am generally talking about practices of wellness and care giving. I am not usually under the burden of having to depend on the kindness of others.
            Yet the affirmation of my humanity – that there were those who really cared about me and were willing to spend the afternoon cooking up a vegetable beef stew or a quinoa casserole – made me want to get healed so that I could repay their kindness, not out of obligation, but out of a profound sense of gratitude for life in all its fullness – for the ability to cook, to drive, to speak a word of encouragement to others. And then that grew into a desire to get up and get moving – so I did – first a few slow, painful steps around the bedroom, then a small circle around the kitchen, through the dining room and into the living room. Later, these became a walk down the driveway, around the campus, to physical therapy, into church. Steps back to work. Steps affirming God’s healing and wholeness, bringing circulation to broken bone and wounded flesh.
            There is healing in the power of affirmation. It’s not the healing power of “I think I can, I think I can” like the Little Engine that Could. Rather, it’s the healing power of the even more profound affirmation that we are loved. That we are not alone. That even in our deepest need, in our greatest pain, we are not alone. We are loved by our neighbors, to be sure, but there is a greater love that makes all loves possible.
            In this Season after Pentecost, when human connection and transformation are made manifest in life-giving and life-changing ways, we give thanks for the healing power of the affirmation that the Spirit Christ is with us. Through Spirit, all things are possible, including true, regenerative healing.

Deborah Patterson serves as the executive director for the International Parish Nurse Resource Center located in St. Louis, Missouri.