By Elizabeth Uhles
This sentence came out of my mouth earlier today:
“Did Courtney just walk by with a dead kid in her arms?”
Everyday we do hospital visits. We are supposed to go from room to room praying for people, except that last week Sarah and I made a friend (Isabel,) and we have ended up going to the same room everyday. We just go, and sit with the family for an hour or two at a time. They are believers, and we always pray fervently together.
This morning, Sarah and I walked to our friend’s room, when we noticed that things weren’t quite right. There were a lot of people around her bed, and her daughter was crying. We stood back trying not to be in the way, but when the daughter saw us, she motioned for us to come in. She told me, that her mother’s infection had spread, and that she had almost died this morning.
Even as the nurses worked, they had us pray for her. As we prayed, I asked the Lord to show them His presence.
As I prayed this, I felt like the Lord was saying, “This is why I sent you here.”
I couldn’t argue with the Lord, but I don’t feel like my physical presence is a good enough answer to prayer. I am nobody, and I don’t do anything. I just sit, talk, and pray, and sometimes just stroke my friend’s head.
Today, I sat on her bed stroking her hair, and I just couldn’t help but think, “The Lord is here. He is with this family.”
Sarah and I left to go buy lunch for the family, and while we were gone they moved her to the UCI (ICU). We couldn’t go in and see her anymore, but we poked our hands through the window when the nurse wasn’t looking.
We spent most of the afternoon, just sitting outside with the family. I gave the daughter a head massage because her head was killing her. It was as I sat outside with the daughter that I saw a hysterical mother, and Courtney with a very sick child in her arms.
As I saw them walk by, my heart dropped to my stomach. All I wanted to know was that the kid wasn’t dead. Eventually, I was able to go ask, and it turned out the kid was just very very very sick.
But that was kind of like the whole day was. Everywhere we looked it was like death was just hanging out, waiting to take over. But as I prayed, the Lord just said over and over. I am here, I am working, I am with these people.
As I sit here, there is actually physical pain in my heart. It is hard to be still and know that God is God, when there is so much pain around me.
Please pray for our friend, and the ministry being done at the Puerto Cabezas Hospital. We are planning to go back in the morning.
Elizabeth was born and raised in Brownsville, Texas. She spent every other year of her childhood wishing that she could grow up in a different city. Her mother grew up in Brownsvilles sister city Matamoros, Mexico, but her father was from San Antonio, Texas, coming together to raise her in a house where it was completely normal to respond to a question asked in Spanish in English and to eat rice and beans with every meal including spaghetti.