The woman in the wheelchair

About a year ago my youngest son had a fever and very strange nodules in his neck. The family doctor sent us to the emergency room in Salamanca to have some tests done as soon as possible. We took the car, and while my husband was taking another of our children to ophthalmological emergencies, I stayed with the youngest one in the hospital's emergency waiting room. 

We had been there for a long time when we began to hear wailing coming from the other end of the room. It was a large room, I would say for a hundred people, with many chairs distributed in rows in different directions. Everyone looked at the corner from which the noise was coming. We did not know if it was a woman or a child, but sobs and groans flooded the room and as their intensity increased, there was silence around because everyone who was there wanted to find out what was happening. 

Finally, they called us to the triage room where my son had a preliminary examination. As I passed the end of the room, I looked to my left and could see where all that crying was coming from. It was an elderly lady, in her 80s, sitting in a wheelchair, with an elderly man who looked like her husband on one side of the chair and a younger man on the other side. It touched my heart to see such a sad sight.

After the first examination we were sent out to wait for the specialist and the results of the blood tests that had just been done on my son. Going back to the emergency waiting room, I saw that the woman who was crying with grief was still there in the chair. Her husband and son looked the other way with faces of helplessness and shame at the same time. The sound of voices in the room had risen now that people had grown accustomed to the wailing. There was no longer any bewilderment; it was a scared poor old woman crying in a corner. 

My son and I returned to sit in the same place. Although I couldn't see the woman from there, I couldn't ignore her wailing. So, I asked my son, “Son, if Jesus were here, what do you think he would do?” He told me that he would surely approach that lady and heal her. I told him that Jesus was not there, but that we were there, and that God had us in this world to be his hands and feet. My son's face turned red; he was surely thinking: "My mother is going to embarrass me again." 

Yet I couldn't take it anymore; I had a fire burning inside me. I felt selfish and hypocritical and I couldn't help but get up and say, “I'm going to pray for her.” I went to the corner where the woman was sitting in the wheelchair, I bent down, I took her hand and I said: "Why are you crying?" The woman raised her head and looked at me pleadingly. 

To my surprise, at that moment the attention of everyone in the room turned to us and there was silence. My heart was pounding wildly. The woman squeezed my hand. "Can I help you?" I asked her. Suddenly, without giving me time to react, the young man next to her, who was not very happy to have all the eyes in the room turning towards him, grabbed the chair and took his mother out of the emergency waiting room.

I sadly returned to my seat and said to my son, "I tried, but I wasn’t able to do anything." I still felt very sorry for that poor woman and I prayed for her. After more than an hour, we were called to the doctor’s office to get the results of the blood tests. "Mononucleosis," they told us, "You must rest." After several more clarifications they told us that we could leave.

We were ready to go home when I saw that the woman in the wheelchair was in a corner of the hall with the two men who were with her. This time I didn't think about it. I ran over, knelt before her again, took her hands and asked if she was in much pain. She said no but that she was very scared. She told me that she lived in a small town with her husband. She had become very ill and her son had brought her and her husband to the hospital. They did not expect good news. 

I was immensely saddened to hear those words. I asked her if she believed in God and the woman's face lit up, she squeezed my hands and smiled saying, "I have always believed in God." So I told her that even though she was suffering, she should know that she was not alone. In a few words and in front of her husband who was looking at me in terror, I explained that God loved her and that if she cried out to Him, God would help her. 

I explained to her that God loves us very much and in order that we could be close to Him and be heard, He sent His Son Jesus to die on a cross for us so that we could be forgiven. I said that God had led me to approach her to tell her that He also loved her and wanted to comfort her. I asked her if I could pray for her and she said, “Yes.”

I put a hand on her shoulder and with the other I grabbed her hand as I asked my heavenly Father to comfort that woman, to help her understand the love of Christ shown on the cross, dying for her sins. I prayed for her husband and son. When I got up, the woman had a huge smile on her mouth and with tears in her eyes, she kept saying, "Thank you, thank you, thank you, my child, how can I thank you?"

As I looked up at her husband, I realized that he was crying with such intensity that I didn't know what to do. He hugged me and said, "Thank you, it is true that God has sent you to us today." Meanwhile, the son, who seemed quite embarrassed, had moved away from where we were and turned his back to us. My husband came with my other son, I said goodbye to that couple promising that I would continue to pray for them, and we left the hospital. 

That day a lot of feelings came over me. On the one hand, I felt satisfaction for having been able to obey what I felt God was asking me to do and for seeing the fruit of peace in that poor couple. On the other hand, I felt ashamed for my lack of faith, for the fear that held me back from approaching a person suffering, for fear of what the people in that room might think when they heard me say that God loved them. But I also realized that the Gospel is the power of God for salvation. I am not saying that God calls us to approach any stranger in any circumstance and to pray for them. What I believe is that we ought to respond to God’s leading.

Our privilege and our responsibility is to carry the gospel wherever there is someone in need. If we are courageous and have faith, we will see the glory of God, as I was able to see it in that elderly couple. It is all a matter of faith. "I believe; help me overcome my unbelief” Mark 9:24

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