In this new column, Linda Riley reflects on the many people we encounter in ministry. Linda is a pastor’s wife and director of Called Together Ministries in Torrance, California.
I hate hospitals. I hate the smell, the grim faces of the waiting, the pained, weary faces of the recovering, the factory-like processing of anguish and distress.
Years ago, though, an afternoon accident transformed me into a regular hospital visitor. It wasn’t my accident that put me in the hospital. It was Yolanda’s.
Yolanda was an imperfect stranger who went screeching by on a main thoroughfare. I commented to my daughter, “There’s an accident waiting to happen.” It didn’t wait long. Two blocks up, Yolanda met four cars full of strangers. Her van turned over, rested upright.
Yolanda stumbled out as I pulled alongside. A crowd gathered, but no one approached the injured out of fear or perhaps repulsion. I locked my young daughter in the car and raced over the crunching glass toward the most injured.
Someone handed me a clean cloth from a nearby bar. I helped the staggering woman to lie down, cradling her head in my arms so she wouldn’t lie in the glass. She had been just about scalped by her windshield. I applied pressure to her head wound to stop the bleeding while covering her eyes with the same cloth so she wouldn’t see what was left of her shredded arm. Certain her soul would soon enter eternity, I ignored the crowd and prayed out loud. She was coherent, so I asked her name and had her pray after me, not taking time for the four spiritual laws. At my prompting, she asked Jesus to forgive her of her sins and to help her.
While I prayed out loud for her life, her appearance was so terrible I also prayed silently that I would not lose my lunch on the poor woman. Her arm seemed beyond saving, and her head was in horrific condition, and all she could say after praying was “Oh, my stomach, my stomach, it hurts so bad.” She was six months’ pregnant and seemed to be delivering at that moment.
The emergency team finally arrived and took over. I gave an accident report to the police, picked up my other daughter from school (my original destination), and went home to wash Yolanda’s blood out of my hair and clothing.
Then I braced myself for the hardest part of the day: a visit to our local “indigent care” hospital. This hospital is known for two things: the best trauma care and the worst ambiance. The walls are painted Nausea Green, the smell is “Eau de Antiseptic Masking Death and Decay.” The staff are like robotons, when you can find any staff. The rooms are crammed with people.
Not my favorite place to spend an evening. But, this girl’s blood had been literally on my hands, and I felt responsible for her. I couldn’t just call, since I was not a relative and didn’t even know her full name.
I found that she had indeed had her baby boy, three months’ premature and not expected to live. The doctors were trying to hold off performing an arm amputation.
It took three days for Yolanda to improve enough to receive visitors. I entered her room with a gift for the baby, a tape player, and some Christian music tapes. When I introduced myself she cried out, “Oh, it’s the voice of the angel who prayed for me. I thought it was a real angel!”
After apologizing for not being an actual angel, I got to know Yolanda. I discovered she had been running away from God all her life. Many of her relatives were believers and felt that God had placed me there to intercede at a crucial time.
I visited Yolanda every day for weeks. She recovered and was able to keep her arm, though not the use of it, because of the extensive nerve damage. Her forehead was scarred with one line of stitching, reminiscent of the “Bride of Frankenstein.” Her son miraculously lived, with no impairment. Gradually, I lost touch with her.
Recently, a beautiful, joyful young lady with a scar on her forehead walked into our church, holding her young son’s hand. Yolanda. She wanted me to know that she and her son were serving the Lord.
I still hate hospitals. To move from a comfy living room couch to the local hospital ward is a sacrifice; though not quite the sacrifice Jesus made in leaving a magnificent heaven for a smelly, messy, painful world. I imagine Jesus isn’t too fond of hospitals, either. But whenever someone we love is there, he and I go together for a visit.
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Linda Riley is director of Called Together Ministries in Torrance, California.
1996 Christianity Today/LEADERSHIP Journal
