Let the Glory of God Fill This Room

Last month one evening after I was in bed, I received a call from Hospice Care requesting my help. They had a need for someone to sit with a woman in a nursing home a few miles from our home. They were asking for relief for a family member, between 12 and 6am that night. Would I consent to go and sit with that woman for two hours of my choice. Never having gone to any hospice need at that hour, somewhat oddly, I consented. Anyway I often awake sometime in that time block.

About 3 A.M. I woke up, dressed and prepared to go shortly before 4, the hour scheduled. I took the shortest route suggested on Yahoo, although it was thru off-roads I have never traveled. When I arrived there, the nurse led me to the room where an elderly woman was in bed. She was not at all conversant; I don't even know if she knew I was there as I introduced myself. She was lying on her back, breathing laboriously with each breath as with considerable effort.

What could I do for her? I did not even know her, never having met any family of hers either. I could sit there, or what? So I stood there and prayed for her. I had to follow my “instincts” in knowing how to pray. Would it even make any difference how I prayed? So I prayed that God would be gracious to her and prepare her heart to meet him, forgiving her for anything that might still be lingering her departure. What else I prayed for, I am not clear on by now. It seemed like a holy moment with somehow God present there in this meeting of mystery with this unknown woman. I concluded my prayer with an unlikely conclusion for me: Let the glory of God fill this room!

I sat down, perhaps for the first time since I had come there. I glanced down and read a short page of a magazine I had with me. I had been in the room with the woman about 25 minutes. When I looked up, I saw the woman was totally calm, quiet, deathly quiet. I waited and she did not move again. She was gone. I found her nurse who came and affirmed that she was gone and there was nothing more for me to do or remain there.

When I checked the obituary later, I learned she was a member of a church close to our home. And that she had worked at Faith Mission in town as a “cashier” as staff. Why I was called there to preside over her home-going, only God really knows. It seems I was to prepare her for her transition to her next life. God led me to pray for her release, I believed, what ever was still needed. Why I was needed for that, again only God knows. It was a holy experience, at 4:00 A.M.