We only visited the Buddhist elderly home one time (check it out here), but we had the chance to visit the Catholic home twice during our month in Vietnam.
~*~
It was the first time we visited when I saw her. A woman, sleeping on her bed, curled in a fetal position and unacknowledged by everyone around her. I felt the urge to go talk to her, but I passed on the opportunity.
I was nervous that she would want me to hold her hand.
I was scared that the lumps that covered every inch of her body would be contagious.
Scared to bother her in her sleeping state.
So I walked past her, pausing for a moment to see if she would open her eyes, but leaving quickly enough that I could still avoid eye contact had she opened them.
~*~
Two weeks later I sat on the bed of another woman, holding her hand as she grinned at me with a toothless smile. We were standing in the same room, singing worship songs and the women loved it.
Some rocked back and forth, living in their minds unaware that we were even there. Others laughed with crazy emotion and stuck out their tongues as we held their hands, talked, and sang for them. And others still, just sat with us, happy that we wanted to sit and spend time with them.
Each woman had a partner holding her hand singing, but the woman from a few weeks earlier still remained unacknowledged.
I felt that pull to go up and speak to her after the song was finished, but was still nervous. The song ended, and everyone moved to a different room, but Stacy, my squad leader, walked up to the woman’s bed and reached out her hand, giving me courage to follow close behind and hold her other hand.
I learned that her lumps were incurable tumors. Not contagious.
I learned that it was these same tumors that had caused her eyes to remain shut in a state of blindness. Not sleep.
She began to tell us the story of how she came to look this way. She said in 1975, after the war, she began to grow tumors on her body and now, at the frail age of 88, there wasn’t a part of her body left unaffected by the disease.
There was so much pain that came with the tumors ranging in size from a small pea to a tennis ball, as they itched and bothered her day and night.
Stacy began to pray for her, letting her know that she is a beautiful daughter coveted by a loving Father who has never forgotten her. We prayed asking God to give her comfort and healing and to cover her with all of His love. I looked at her closed eyes begin to water as she sat on her bed listening to our prayers and their translations.
My face began to reflect hers and a tear or five started to roll down my cheek.
This woman is rarely acknowledged. Her spirit hidden by the tumors that cover her whole body and her joy inaccessible due to the pain they cause her.
She has been blinded to her ability to feel loved. And I think in that moment her eyes were opened to a small glimpse of the Love waiting for her both in life and after death.
~*~
A while back I had a friend share his opinion of Christianity saying that it was “a coping mechanism for death.” I nodded my head, understanding why he would think that, also knowing that there is so much more underneath that statement waiting to be explored.
As I sat on the beds of these two completely different women from the Buddhist and Christian elderly homes, I was reminded of that statement.
I realized that Jesus isn’t a coping mechanism for death. His faithfulness doesn’t just hold our hand and tell us to look forward to heaven. His gift is a gift of life and His love is here on earth.
And when Jesus saw a need, he fixed it. In his own time and his own way, but he doesn’t hold back his promises for us and save them for heaven. He joyfully gives us everything we need for the particular moment we’re living.
In that moment Maria didn’t need a reminder of heaven’s promise. She didn’t need her tumors healed or a miracle taking away physical pain. If she did, God would’ve healed her.
All she needed was to feel loved and be told she wasn’t forgotten.
As she held tightly to my hands, I could feel her grasping His love for her, remembering the sweet feeling of His embrace or maybe feeling loved by her Father for the first time.
And reflected in her tears was evidence of her soul healing in greater and more important ways than any sort of physical healing could have produced.
She was healed by love and made for an abundant life full of goodness given to her from her Father.
A Father who gives all good things to his children and smiles when heaven invades earth in sweet moments such as these.
