I Was Sick and You Visited Me

Yesterday I wrote about how much I loved my ministry as Chaplain at the Falmouth Hospital visiting patients. It is truly a blessing in my life and I receive much more than I give. There are days, however, that are more difficult and there seems there is nothing I can offer the patient or family to help alleviate the situation.

Last fall I wrote about one of those situation. It concerned a woman who lost her child after twelve weeks of pregnancy, an event that is always traumatic, but one that was made more distressful because of her situation. She felt she was being punished by God because she had been divorced and remarried and that she was living in sin but couldn’t do anything about it. She kept repeating that over and over as she sobbed. She desperately wanted to be part of the Church but couldn’t because she had been kicked out because of her second marriage. I mentioned the possibility of an annulment. She had gone through the process but was denied the annulment because she didn’t have enough witnesses to support her. She said that there was no one she could turn to for spiritual support or advice because the Church wouldn’t accept her.

What was I to say? I felt overwhelmed with sadness for her and offered some platitudes that God still loves her and that no, He wasn’t punishing her. But my comments seemed so empty and futile. Here was a woman who had just lost her baby, and the Church was turning her back on her at a time when she most needed her; a Church that she desperately wanted to be a part of. I’ve thought of her and prayed for her often these last few months and hope the recently published “The Joy of Love” will open new opportunities for her. 

A couple of weeks ago I had an especially difficult day.

It started with my being paged to ER while I was on the way to the hospital. A 63 year old man had died unexpectedly. The wife and a cousin who he had been working with were in the waiting room waiting to see him once the medical staff had completed what they needed to. While waiting, they explained that he and his cousin had been working outside and had just come in for lunch. The gentleman got up from the table and said that he didn’t feel well and sat down in his lounge chair. He never got up. His cousin who was an EMT immediately did CPR on the person and the ambulance was there within five minutes but they never got a response. He was a totally healthy man with no history of any medical problems. After we went into the room to view the deceased and say some prayers I stayed with the family until some other relatives arrived. In the meantime, the wife, in a state of shock but not shedding a tear, was calling her six children to let them know their father had passed away. It was one of the most difficult times I had been with a family. All I could think about was what if that had happened to me and my wife had to call our children. I made me realize once again how precious life is and how important family is.

That same day, I visited two other women who found out they had terminal cancer. One of the women whose daughter had brought her to ER just happened to have to have an emergency appendectomy while she was waiting for a diagnosis on her mother. I also visited another woman in her 60’s who had lost five of her children and one more was having challenges.

I thank God for the blessings of good health in my life for the most part. I don’t like platitudes but I think of the one that says “There is always someone else that has it worse off than you.” May we all thank God for the blessings in our life and pray for those who are in need of our prayers.

Deacon Greg Beckel