And We Prayed

08/28/10

I know it seems as though I am all caught up in the prayer thing, but here is a post I wrote on August 1, and failed, for whatever reason, to publish. It really should come before "Fired But Not Forgotten," so please, when you read it, go back to that post, my most recent. It is very dear to me.

08/01/10

They stood in a semicircle around the hospital bed, holding hands and listening as the Deacon laid his hand on the dying man’s head and began pray. We were a varied lot, this string of people connected by our hands. The Deacon’s unruly white tufts of hair stuck out in several directions. He was holding my hand - hard. My right hand was snuggled softly into that of a girl about about 17, one of the grandchildren. And on around the bed went the chain - children, grands, another nurse and the Hospice Chaplain, theirs and mine the only white faces in the room. She was holding the patient’s hand.

The praying began in earnest as the Deacon raised his head to heaven and sent up a squall of words to God Almighty, testifying to his knowledge that, though the doctors had given up, The Lord was stronger than all the doctors in the world, that he could send down a miracle and cure this man, this man whose cancer started in his pancreas and spread throughout his frail brown body. Cornrows, perfectly strait and colorfully decorated with beads, formed a sort of rainbow halo over his head.

The Deacon prayed hard, his grip causing my left hand to tingle with sleep, my wedding band to dig into my fingers. Yes, we had prayer. Indeed, we did.