This is not the result any of us wanted.

We have prayed with great faith for healing, knowing it was against the odds of nature all along. If pure willpower could win this fight, this man would have won. If being greatly loved by so many people could make a difference, it would have.

After he signed the paper and the witness and the hospice representative left the room, we didn’t have words to give each other in conversation that would make any of us feel better or deal better. So we prayed to the One who understands how we feel, the One who can carry us through these difficult times.

The prayer I spoke was one of lament, telling God that this was not the result we wanted, admitting our pain, our frustration. But I also found words to express our love and faith to God in spite of not getting what we wanted, our total trust in Him to provide for our best good. And I also uttered a number of requests — for His care and protection and love for this family as they continue down a most difficult road.

As people of faith, we frequently pray for healing even in the face of long odds. We are praying for a miracle, for an outcome that flies in the face of logic, of reason, of grim statistics of nature.

Sometimes, admittedly infrequently, God grants our deep desire. I rejoice, and my resolve to keep praying for divine intervention is strengthened.

More often, He doesn’t. Then I express my lament, my sadness at the pain of this life. My resolve to continue praying for divine intervention is not lessened, but I am reminded that I, like Job of old, don’t know the answers.

I was reminded of Job yesterday, that in spite of pain and frustration, that he didn’t lose his integrity.

And that it was time to give that helpful book a fresh read.

Black Bottom Pie

Eloise and I were in Florida for the long weekend visiting her brother Steve in residential hospice. I wrote briefly about our visit on Saturday. Here’s a brief update on our Sunday and Monday visits.

Eloise had been thinking about what she could do special during this visit for a while, and decided that making Steve’s favorite dessert, black bottom pie,  would be it. It was the special food their mom always prepared when Steve was coming home. It was his “birthday cake.”

It’s not an easy pie to make. You first prepare a custard, then make half of it chocolate which forms the bottom layer. The other half of the custard has beaten egg whites folded in along with some vanilla, and forms the second layer. After these layers have set, it’s topped with whipped cream. We spent quite a while just shopping for what Eloise needed to make the pie. We ended up having to go to three stores to find an electric hand mixer. It turned out to be one expensive pie, but we just decided to call it priceless.

When we arrived at the hospice, Steve was sleeping, and really didn’t want to wake up, so we watched a little football, and even our cheers and groans at the Cowboys didn’t arouse him. However, a guy came to visit with a therapy dog, and that helped Steve start waking up. He was about to go back to sleep when I started telling him that Eloise had made him a black bottom pie. That made him decide to wake up!

With an aide helping him, he ate a whole piece, mumbling appreciation and even rolling his eyes at how good it tasted. It was worth all of the work to see him enjoy it, to talk about how important it had been in his life, to explain that it was his mom’s recipe. We made sure the staff all got some as well. He talked some, but mostly dozed after eating the pie.

Monday our goal was to take his dogs out of the kennel and take them to visit Steve. It’s been the thing that he has most wanted since this all began. We had planned to do it Saturday, but the kennel was closed for the weekend.

Steve’s dogs are golden retrievers, and though they are good dogs, were quite a handful for us. But once we got them into his room they settled, and aside from wanting to drink out of the toilet, were well behaved. Hospices are dog friendly places, and encourage pet visits. The staff had all heard about the dogs, and all came in to meet them and be part of the time together. Steve really enjoyed the time with them, and talked more and even laughed several times while we were there with them. The dogs didn’t really understand the bed thing, but we were finally able to help the dog Steve raised from a pup to get up on the bed with him so that Steve could hold and rub on him. It was an emotional scene for all of us.

Shortly afterwards, we said our goodbyes, as we had to leave to take the dogs back to the kennel and catch our flight home.

We had been able to have some memorable moments, and it was a good visit.

One of the interesting twists to all of this is that Steve’s condition has stabilized to the point that he will move to a different resident hospice house this week. He doesn’t require the level of care that is provided at his current house. In fact today, Steve called me on his cell phone and we had a good conversation — much better than any we have had in person since this all started. He didn’t remember that we had been there for the weekend, but with prompting remembered the dogs coming and the pie. A week ago he couldn’t talk, and today he has been talking since he woke up.

We don’t know what the days ahead hold. But we know that God has been at work in all of this, and for that we are thankful.

That means I had several indepth conversations. They were each different — in substance, in emotional tone, in breadth. Each was driven by what that person wanted to talk about, though sometimes with gentle prompting.

I’ve learned that indepth conversations take me longer to post-process, and that’s true today. One in particular just keeps coming to mind. Partly it’s because he talked about the effects of his disease on so many different aspects of his life. And partly it’s because of the depth and at times rawness of his feelings.

It’s an honor to be entrusted with someone’s deepest thoughts and feelings. But sometimes they are also kind of heavy to carry around. I’m thankful for a God with infinite capacity to accept my burdens and those of the folks I minister to. Today there’s a lot to turn over.

The patient has something they want to say, something he has been working through for some time.  He needs someone who will appreciate what he has to say to sit and listen, to help make it real.

Interestingly, what he has to say is often something I need to hear for where I am in life.

Yesterday one of those times happened.  I walked into a room, introduced myself, and the patient just started in.  It was quickly obvious that he was delivering a well thought out philosophy about his life.  Sprinkled in were facts about his life, good stuff and bad.  But mostly he was telling me about attitudes and deeply held beliefs that he had developed to help him navigate life, especially in those times of great uncertainty such as he is currently facing.

One of his life principles is to live with the anticipation that each day is going to be a great day.  He told me that when he did, that it was amazing how often it was a great day, no matter what might be happening.  He said that it made tomorrow so much easier, like rolling on a round tire, rather than a square one.

He talked about the abundance of blessings in his life, physical and relational.  He also talked about rock-bottom times.  He said that if he wanted to accept the good things, he also needed to be able to accept the difficult.

He and his wife both exuded joy, in abundance.

What he had to say was important to him.  It turns out that it was really good stuff, helpful to me.  But even if it hadn’t been, even if I hadn’t agreed with what he had to say, it would have been important to listen just as intently to validate him as a person, to be an appreciative audience as he rehearsed his strongest inner beliefs and feelings.

That’s how important listening is.  I was again taught that talking is a highly over-rated ministry tool, and that listening is highly under-rated.

Twitter Post by Karen Putz

I was reminded that sometimes how we describe our loss surprises others when I saw this Twitter post by Karen Putz (@deafmom) earlier this week.  Karen’s dad has esophageal cancer, and hasn’t really been able to eat normally for the last couple of months.  So in retrospect, his response to the doctor is right on, but it probably surprised everyone when he said it.

As we’re grieving a loss, we tend to express that loss in ways that are highly personal to us — in ways that truly describe what we miss dearly, and would like to have back.  It’s part of the longing for phase of grief.  Karen’s dad longs to be able to eat his wife’s cooking again — both because it’s good, and because that would mean that he’s dealt successfully with his cancer.

One of my favorite questions while visiting patients in the hospital has become, “What one thing are you praying for today?”

I ask that question for lots of reasons.  It helps me target my prayer with the person to pray specifically for what they want most that day.  There’s often a powerful connection between us as we join together in prayer with the words, “God, my prayer is _____ ‘s prayer.”  And it often provides an opportunity to talk about the real issue the person is struggling with that day.

Karen’s post reminded me of a recent visit.  When I first entered the room, most of my conversation was with the patient’s husband.  The patient was having some pain, and just wasn’t engaging.  But when I asked her if she’d like to pray, and specifically what her biggest request was, she jumped in and took over the conversation.  Her request was simple:  ”I want to be able to go back home and take care of my 101-year old mother, and help my sister get there so she can help.”  It represented both what she had lost, and what was important to her.  As we prayed together, she verbally reinforced my words with her “Amen’s” and “Yes, Lord’s.”

It was a special moment for all of us.  Her greatest desire had been heard and then expressed in prayer.

Karen’s post is one reason I’m active on Twitter — I’m always learning, and often being reminded of what’s important.  Asking good questions like Karen’s dad’s doctor did is important.

Thanks for the Twitter post, Karen.  And I am praying that your dad gets to eat your mom’s good cooking soon!

I’ve never been a fan of early mornings.  Even for fishing, although that’s about the best reason I can think of for getting up early.  Eloise and I enjoy late evenings and slow starts to the morning.

Tomorrow morning’s difficult for another reason.  Dad’s procedure is to remove a tumor from his bladder.  The doctor seems confident it’s cancer.

Fortunately, the procedure itself is quick, although performed under anesthesia.  It only takes about 30 minutes to perform, and then after a couple of hours to let the anesthesia effects dissipate, he will be able to go back to his apartment.

We’ll appreciate your thoughts and prayers as we take this step which will help us learn what’s next.

I know I’ve written and spoken about the importance of presence.  And I really do believe that just showing up is a really important part of what we do.  It’s just that I still underestimate its real impact.  I tend to think that the visits where I’ve had a deep conversation with a patient are where I’ve had real impact.

But a couple of recent incidents are helping me better realize the pure value of  presence.

Recently a colleague who visits the same patients a couple of days after I do told me, “Several people commented about how important your visits were to them this week.”

I tried and tried, and for the life of me, I couldn’t think of a single visit that week that I thought was worthy of that compliment.  It had been a week of visits without real engagement, without deep dialogue.

Then today, I entered a patient’s room and was greeted by name and treated like a lifelong friend.  I was surprised because my only visit with these folks had been last week when they were both trying to rest and in which we only exchanged a couple of sentences and had prayer.  I was probably in the room only three minutes total.

The only explanation is that there is simply a lot more impact on people from just showing up than I feel — even if it’s only for a couple of minutes and no real conversation happens.

I need to come to grips with the fact that what’s  meaningful to patients may be different than what seems meaningful to me.  God does amazing things with the simple act of being present, making a much greater impact that all of the listening and conversational skills I take pride in.  So why is it so hard for us to learn and accept this simple truth?

From the moment I walk in from the garage, I start working on my smile, trying to make eye contact with everyone I meet, to connect, so that when I walk into a patient’s room, they are able to sense that I like them.

As I listened to these words come out of my mouth while teaching a section on closing the interpersonal gap with folks we are visiting, I was a little surprised.

I’m used to things coming out of my mouth that are new thoughts.  I understand that with my personality type that I tend to process thoughts by saying them out loud.  So that was not surprising.

And I was not surprised that I was telling the class that I was intentional in practicing my smile and my eye contact on people that I met in the halls of the hospital.  I’ve talked out loud about that before, even written about it.  And it’s not just for the practice — it’s a genuine attempt to make a difference as I walk the halls.

But I was somewhat surprised that I’d verbally connected it with another very important purpose — helping patients’ first impression of me be that I like them.

Trying to have patients sense immediately that I like them — when they are not at their best physically and emotionally and perhaps spiritually — is a way to show my love for them, to validate them as people.  And if I can be successful in doing that, then there’s a chance that I can have the opportunity to meet some of their other needs.

“I’ll be able to get better there.  I can eat what I want to eat when I want to eat.  I can sleep all night.  I’ll just feel better.”

For some of the people I visit, when they say home, they really mean home.  For many others, “home” means an apartment close to the hospital.  But for those folks, that temporary home is still home compared to the hospital.

It’s easy for me to believe them, because there’s no place I’d rather be than home.  I always feel better at home.  I feel more like me when I’m home.

So I’m pulling for all of them.  There’s no place like home.  Especially if you’re in a hospital.

“I can’t believe God would…” or something like it is a phrase that all of us use from time to time as we try to make sense of what’s happening in our lives.  Our reasoning is based on what we know, what we feel, and what we want.

The phrase that fires in my mind when I hear someone else utter that phrase is, “But I can believe God would, because I’ve seen it in the lives of other faithful people.”

I don’t say it out loud, of course.  I’m not there to batter hope, or to argue theology, as if I was qualified.  But there’s this conflict in our minds because our experience, our logic, our understanding informs us that while sometimes God saves us from tragedy, sometimes He doesn’t.  None of us can explain why, just as none of us can explain God.

I spent some serious time yesterday in conversations with people who were being forced to confront the fact that their disease might prematurely end their lives.  They might not get to see their children grow up, or their grandchildren grow up.  They might not get to grow old with their spouses.  Their (our) dream for this life might not be realized.

These were people with deep faith, a faith we share.  A couple of them used a variation of the opening phrase of this post, giving voice to their struggle to understand what was happening and God’s place in it, voicing hope against long odds that God has another plan for them.

We are all mortal.  But we don’t like it.  All those we love are also mortal, as I’ll be reminded again today when Dad and I go to visit Mom’s grave.  But we don’t like that either.

This life, with all it’s struggles, is precious.  The lives of those we love are precious.  Getting to see kids grow up, to see grand kids grow up, to grow old with our spouse is precious.

Yet because of our mortality, we don’t always get to experience these joys.  Disease, an accident, or the willful act of another can change all of that in an instant, or in a year.

I do express my desires to God for safety, for protection, for long life — for me, for those I love, even often for strangers.  I believe that He absolutely can provide that, and I get to see times when I’m convinced that He has done that against all odds.  But it doesn’t happen all the time, in every situation.

So, like the patients I visited yesterday, I struggle with the thought, “I can’t believe God would…”  It’s not a lack of faith, but more an admission of my lack of understanding His ways.

I’m okay with that struggle because I know, whether He chooses to change the events of this life or not, that He’s made a piece of us immortal, a piece of us that will live forever without the effects of the disease, the accident, or the results of a willful act of another.  And for that I’m so very grateful.