Hope Beyond Circumstances
Last Saturday our ministry did a nativity service for one of our convalescent homes. It had been an uphill battle to get the time for this one. For one thing, the Rec. Director there didn’t really encourage our rescheduling the service. We have a strict third Sunday of the month and she likes to maintain that order. However, we were leaving this year by the 15th of December and had no choice but to reschedule it.
So, last month, we went to work planning out a nativity service. The first convalescent home that we did the nativity service for was an Assisted Living center. The seniors there are more reserved, but more healthy. We didn’t know what we were going to get at the second one where the seniors aren’t in good shape.
When we started, everything seemed to be working against us. The air conditioning sounded loud, the milk machine has a horrible drone to it, and there were a group of carolers walking around the halls that we could hear, not the mention an occasional interruption by the paging system.
To top that off, the first part of our nativity service is largely narration setting up the telling of the nativity story, which can be a bit boring for them. Still, we charged on and started into the story of Jesus’ birth. After the first song, though, I noticed a more quieted audience. As it progressed, I felt that every person was listening more and more. Before long, we had the rapt attention of all of the seniors.
Early on, a younger woman came in and joined her mother. She started to get emotional throughout the service and toward the end, she was crying openly.
In the throes of the last song, “The Glorious Impossible,” our voices built in volume and we started into the Halleluia portion of the chorus and I saw a frail woman in pink to the left lift up her hand to the beat of the music. Tears came into her eyes as she pounded her fist to the beat of the anthem. I nearly choked on the rising emotion then, but I held it back until the end of the song.
As we greeted the seniors afterward, I first reached the younger woman and she expressed how much this service meant to her. “I had a really, really bad day today,” She said, her nose and eyes were red, “but this is just what I needed.”
Then, I went over the frail lady in pink. She grabbed my hand and pulled it to her heart, tears forming in her eyes. I couldn’t hold back my own tears then. They came to rushing into my eyes and we shared a moment together–no words, only tears.
Eulah, another one of our regular seniors, can’t speak and the right half of her body is paralyzed from a stroke, so Eulah doesn’t clap. After each song, Eulah raises her open hand into the air and waves at us with a big, beautiful smile on her face. About a year ago, Eulah’s daughter came out from Texas to visit and she said that she was shocked because her mother couldn’t speak a word, yet Eulah managed to sing the words to nearly every song. She told us that Eulah had been a pastor’s wife most of her life.
We had set up a little lighted nativity set in front of us for the seniors to look at during the nativity, and as I turned around, Eulah had pulled her wheelchair forward right up to the nativity. I watched her stare at it for a moment, and then I took her hand and stood there with her. It was like seeing the nativity for the first time.
2000 years ago when Christ was born, hope came into the world, and here hope still remains. To find hope in a convalescent home is rare, but it’s there and it isn’t found by being a spectator. By rolling up our sleeves and being willing to be vulnerable, we can bear witness to a hope that goes beyond our circumstances and to some of God’s greatest mercies.
December 4th, 2006 · 10 Comments
Categories: OA Stories
Helen said
am December 4 2006 @ 1:55 pm
Thanks for sharing about the nativity service, April. I’m glad it meant so much to people like Eulah.
I can see why sitting in church doesn’t do much for you, if this is how your services at the convalescent homes go! Church must seem so un-connecty in comparison.
Bruce Logue said
am December 4 2006 @ 10:31 pm
April, you allowed God to use you as a vessel of hope and proved how transportable it is. Thanks!
Laura M. said
am December 6 2006 @ 4:59 am
This is a beautiful story. My daughter’s middle name, Esperanza, means hope.
These types of moments were what I enjoyed when I did attend church as a child and teen. It brings to mind a comment Julia Sweeney, former Saturday Night Live comedian, posted on her personal blog.
She’s said what a shame it is that children can’t view and participate in Christmas pageants and nativity scenes in public school. She’s an atheist, and she felt somewhat hypocritical taking her daughter to services this time of year, just so she can take part in the culture and tradition of the church at Christmas.
Alternately, a counselor my sister had sessions with when she was a teenager told her that her feelings of hopelessness were perfectly fine (she suffered from severe depression), that she didn’t need hope at all. She told my sister that God has enough hope for everyone,and that she only needed faith.
I didn’t get it and neither did my sister, it just made her feel worse.
April Terry said
am December 6 2006 @ 9:40 am
Thanks, Laura, for your comments. It reminds me of a conversation that I had with a man during the Thanksgiving holiday. He told me that he had learned “Away in a Manger” in public school. I made a comment that things were a lot more lax about those things back then it was true. He said, “Yes, but if they hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have had any experience of those things.”
I thought it was an interesting aspect of that debate.
April Terry said
am December 6 2006 @ 5:28 pm
Laura, I was pondering the second part of your message noted above and I thought about a time when I was going through a deep tragedy in my life. At that time, I couldn’t escape the pain that I was feeling and I prayed for Joy. That joy was given to me in the form of a song that I wrote.
Through that experience, I learned that sometimes we can’t always generate joy, hope, love, forgiveness, etc. from within ourselves, and that those things sometimes have to come from outside of us. In my life, that outside source is God, but whether that outside source to you is friends, God, or just the knowledge that all things eventually get better with time, it is still an experience of faith.
Do you think that is perhaps what she might have meant?
Mike O said
am December 8 2006 @ 9:42 am
This reminds me of a great story I heard once in a sermon … Here is a transcript I typed up:
Laura M. said
am December 8 2006 @ 10:01 am
April,
Thank you for this reply. I think you are exactly correct in that this is most likely what my sister’s counselor meant.
What’s difficult is that my sister suffered(s) from chronic depression and bi-polar disorder. It runs in our family. When you are young and have a family history of mental illness and neglect, and you have sunk down into the cycle of a major depressive phase yet again, it is so difficult to feel faith as something real or tangible that you can grasp at and hold onto.
Support systems are key in this type of situation, but we had none. When my sister was told this (ie.let go of hope), it was as if the floor had been pulled out from under her feet.
To me, without hope, there is nothing. Hope is the last resource, as I’ve never felt faith. If it walked up and bit me on the nose, I probably wouldn’t recognize it. Faith is a foreign concept to me (although I was raised in the church), I just don’t think I’m built that way, it’s not in my DNA.
That is how I experience hope
Laura M. said
am December 8 2006 @ 10:11 am
Mike O,
Just read your comment after I posted my response to April.
That is a great sermon. I think it touches on what I described with my sister perfectly.
Thank You.
Helen said
am December 8 2006 @ 4:00 pm
Wow…
Laura, I don’t know how much you know about me yet. You might be interested to read this (which I wrote yesterday, but it links to something older).
Ordinary Attempts - said
am April 1 2007 @ 9:11 pm
[...] has written about her convalescent home ministry experiences in Hope Beyond Circumstances, Read the Book or Enjoy the Cover, Acting on Faith and Please, Come Back. You can read more about [...]