We are not alone

She was a fragile arm and peeking eyes, a nest of hair on her pillow.

"I'm Joannie, I'm a chaplain, here. Remember me?" I said, even as she nodded and wiped tears from her eyes.

"I saw your sister upstairs," I told her. "She is even walking around, recovering well from the surgery." I paused. "She told me what was going on with you, too." I said, as I walked over to her.

The slight arm brushed the tangled hair a bit and tears spilled. I sat down close to her and she said, "I'm so scared."

"I would be scared, too. Right now, they are just testing for cancer, they don't know it's cancer yet ... but I would be scared, too," I said.

"I feel like a little girl," she sobbed.

I smoothed her sweaty hair back from her face. I felt so helpless and wordless.

"It's ok to be scared. It's a scary thing to hear," I said.

"I did this to myself," she cried. "I'm so scared that God is mad at me ... When I was younger ... when I was younger, I took a page of the Bible and used it to roll a ... cigarette ... with."

"Oh, honey," I laughed as I took her hand, "He's a big God. He can handle that one."

"I wasn't as good a person as I should have been, you know?" she said through tears.

"I do know, because no one is. He's the Creator, He's the only perfect One. He loves us anyway and forgives us for all of these things."

"I just think that if I have cancer it's because of what I done to myself, because I wasn't a good person," she said crying and crying.

Fiercely, I said, "That is not true. You listen to me. Bad things happen to good people. Good things happen to bad people. Life is a series of ups and downs, light and dark, joys and sufferings. You did not do this to yourself. This just happened."

She held my eyes with hers, held my hand with hers and we prayed to our Father. We prayed that He would shower His love on her and that she would feel His forgiveness and mercy. We prayed against cancer, we prayed for healing and for peace and for comfort.

"I love you," she said to me and my eyes opened with tears of their own. "I love you and I don't even know you," she said.

"I love you, too," I said as I cried with her.

I spend my days praying for the sick, praying for healing, praying for their comfort, for their strength, for God's peace to infiltrate their hearts, for doctors and nurses, for family member's courage.

At bedsides, I seek God as one who should know God. I seek Him as urgently and desperately as those for whom I pray. I speak as one who knows, but I seek humbly as one who doesn't. I speak of the light as one who lives in it, but I live as one who can see it only in the darkness; one who has hope.

In this journey, I am grateful that my Creator has given me these opportunities to serve as I seek, to serve my brothers and sisters who seek Him alongside me. I am grateful that as we seek Him, we know we are not alone.