This is from John Ortberg’s book “The Life You’ve Always Wanted“. It’s an amazing story he got from Tom Schmidt from pages 24-28
“The state-run convalescent hospital is not a pleasant place. It is large, understaffed, and overfilled with senile and helpless and lonely people who are waiting to die-. On the brightest of days it seems dark inside, and it smell of sickness and stale urine. I went there once or twice a week for four years, but I never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. It is not the kind of place one gets used to.
“On this particular day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases, strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs and looking completely helpless.
“As I neared the end of this hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side, dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence, she drooled constantly. I was told later that when new nurses arrived, the supervisors would send them to feed this woman, thinking that if they could stand this sight they could stand anything in the building. I also learned later that this woman was eighty-nine years old and that she had been here, bedridden, blind, nearly deaf and alone,for twenty- five years. This was Mabel.
“I don’t know why I spoke to her—she looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her hand and said, ‘Here is a flower for you. Happy Mother’s Day.’ She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it, and then she spoke. And much to my surprise, her words, although somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obviously produced by a clear mind. She said, ‘Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it, you know, I’m blind.’
“I said, ‘Of course,’ and I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I thought I could find some alert patients. I found one, and I stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, ‘Here, this is from Jesus.’
“That was when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being. Later I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about her history. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mother until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until 1950 when her blindness and sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital. For twenty-five years she got weaker and sicker, with constant headaches, backaches, and stomach aches, and then the cancer came too. Her three roommates were all human vegetables who screamed occasionally but never talked. They often soiled their bedclothes, and because the hospital was understaffed, especially on Sundays when I usually visited, the stench was often overpowering.
“Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks, and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next three years. Her first words to me were usually an offer of hard candy from a tissue box near her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible, and often when I would pause she would continue reciting the passage from memory, word-for-word. On other days I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and she would know all the words of the old songs. For Mabel, these were not merely exercises in memory. She would often stop in mid-hymn and make a brief comment about lyrics she considered particularly relevant to her own situation. I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns.
“It was not many weeks before I turned from a sense that I was being helpful to a sense of wonder, and I would go to her with a pen and paper to write down the things she would say….
“During one hectic week of final exams I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in ten directions at once with all of the things that I had to *think about. The question occurred to me, ‘What does Mabel have to think about—hour after hour, day after day, week after week, not even able to know if it’s day or night?’ So I went to her and asked, `Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here?’
“And she said, ‘I think about my Jesus.’
“I sat there, and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me, of thinking about Jesus for even five minutes, and I asked, `What do you think about Jesus?’ She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote. .
I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know … I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied…. Lots of folks wouldn’t care much for what I think. Lots of folks would think I’m kind of old- fashioned. But I don’t care. I’d rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.
“And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:
Jesus is all the world to me,
My life, my joy, my all.
He is my strength from day to day, Without him I would fall.
When I am sad, to him I go,
No other one can cheer me so. When I am sad He makes me glad. He’s my friend.“This is not fiction. Incredible as it may seem, a human being really lived like this. I know. I knew her. How could she do it? Seconds ticked and minutes crawled, and so did days and weeks and months and years of pain without human company and without an explanation of why it was all happening—and she lay there and sang hymns. How could she do it?
“The answer, I think, is that Mabel had something that you and I don’t have much of. She had power. Lying there in that bed, unable to move, unable to see, unable to hear, unable to talk to anyone, she had incredible power.”
Here was an ordinary human being who received supernatural power to do extraordinary things.
Here was an entire life consisted of following Jesus as best she could in her situation: patient endurance of suffering, solitude, prayer, meditation on Scripture, worship, fellowship when it was possible, giving when she had a flower or a piece of candy to offer.
Imagine being in her condition and saying,”I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know. . . . I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied.” This is the Twenty-third Psalm come to life: “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
For anyone who really saw Mabel—who was willing to “turn aside”—a hospital bed became a burning bush; a place where this ordinary and pain-filled world was visited by the presence of God. When others saw the life in that hospital bed, they wanted to take off their shoes. The lid was off the terrarium. Then the turn came, with a catch of the breath, and a beating of the heart, and tears. They were standing on holy ground.
Do you believe such a life is possible for an ordinary human being?
“The state-run convalescent hospital is not a pleasant place. It is large, understaffed, and overfilled with senile and helpless and lonely
people who are waiting to die-. On the brightest of days it seems dark inside, and it smell of sickness and stale urine. f went there once or
twice a week for four years, but I never wanted to go there, and I always left with a sense of relief. It is not the kind of place one gets
used to.
“On this particular day I was walking in a hallway that I had not visited before, looking in vain for a few who were alive enough to receive
a flower and a few words of encouragement. This hallway seemed to contain some of the worst cases, strapped onto carts or into wheelchairs
and looking completely helpless.
“As I neared the end of this hallway, I saw an old woman strapped up in a wheelchair. Her face was an absolute horror. The empty stare and
white pupils of her eyes told me that she was blind. The large hearing aid over one ear told me that she was almost deaf. One side of her
face was being eaten by cancer. There was a discolored and running sore covering part of one cheek, and it had pushed her nose to one side,
dropped one eye, and distorted her jaw so that what should have been the corner of her mouth was the bottom of her mouth. As a consequence,
she drooled constantly. I was told later that when new nurses arrived, the supervisors would send them to feed this woman, thinking that if
they could stand this sight they could stand anything in the building. I also learned later that this woman was eighty-nine years old and
that she had been here, bedridden, blind, nearly deaf and alone,for twenty- five years. This was Mabel.
“I don’t know why I spoke to her—she looked less likely to respond than most of the people I saw in that hallway. But I put a flower in her
hand and said, ‘Here is a flower for you. Happy Mother’s Day.’ She held the flower up to her face and tried to smell it, and then she spoke.
And much to my surprise, her words, although somewhat garbled because of her deformity, were obviously produced by a clear mind. She said,
‘Thank you. It’s lovely. But can I give it to someone else? I can’t see it, you know, I’m blind.’
“I said, ‘Of course,’ and I pushed her in her chair back down the hallway to a place where I thought I could find some alert patients. I
found one, and I stopped the chair. Mabel held out the flower and said, ‘Here, this is from Jesus.’
“That was when it began to dawn on me that this was not an ordinary human being. Later I wheeled her back to her room and learned more about
her history. She had grown up on a small farm that she managed with only her mother until her mother died. Then she ran the farm alone until
1950 when her blindness and sickness sent her to the convalescent hospital. For twenty-five years she got weaker and sicker, with constant
headaches, backaches, and stomach aches, and then the cancer came too. Her three roommates were all human vegetables who screamed
occasionally but never talked. They often soiled their bedclothes, and because the hospital was understaffed, especially on Sundays when I
usually visited, the stench was often overpowering.
“Mabel and I became friends over the next few weeks, and I went to see her once or twice a week for the next three years. Her first words to
me were usually an offer of hard candy from a tissue box near her bed. Some days I would read to her from the Bible, and often when I would
pause she would continue reciting the passage from memory, word-for-word. On other days I would take a book of hymns and sing with her, and
she would know all the words of the old songs. For Mabel, these were not merely exercises in memory. She would often stop in mid-hymn and
make a brief comment about lyrics she considered particularly relevant to her own situation. I never heard her speak of loneliness or pain
except in the stress she placed on certain lines in certain hymns.
“It was not many weeks before I turned from a sense that I was being helpful to a sense of wonder, and I would go to her with a pen and paper
to write down the things she would say….
“During one hectic week of final exams I was frustrated because my mind seemed to be pulled in ten directions at once with all of the things
that I had to *think about. The question occurred to me, ‘What does Mabel have to think about—hour after hour, day after day, week after
week, not even able to know if it’s day or night?’ So I went to her and asked, `Mabel, what do you think about when you lie here?’
“And she said, ‘I think about my Jesus.’
“I sat there, and thought for a moment about the difficulty, for me, of thinking about Jesus for even five minutes, and I asked, `What do you
think about Jesus?’ She replied slowly and deliberately as I wrote. .
I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know … I’m one of those kind who’s mostly
satisfied…. Lots of folks wouldn’t care much for what I think. Lots of folks would think I’m kind of old- fashioned. But I don’t care. I’d
rather have Jesus. He’s all the world to me.
“And then Mabel began to sing an old hymn:
Jesus is all the world to me,
My life, my joy, my all.
He is my strength from day to day, Without him I would fall.
When I am sad, to him I go,
No other one can cheer me so. When I am sad He makes me glad. He’s my friend.
“This is not fiction. Incredible as it may seem, a human being really lived like this. I know. I knew her. How could she do it? Seconds
ticked and minutes crawled, and so did days and weeks and months and years of pain without human company and without an explanation of why it
was all happening—and she lay there and sang hymns. How could she do it?
“The answer, I think, is that Mabel had something that you and I don’t have much of. She had power. Lying there in that bed, unable to move,
unable to see, unable to hear, unable to talk to anyone, she had incredible power.”
Here was an ordinary human being who received supernatural power to do extraordinary things.
Here was an entire life consisted of following Jesus as best she could in her situation: patient endurance of suffering, solitude, prayer,
meditation on Scripture, worship, fellowship when it was possible, giving when she had a flower or a piece of candy to offer.
Imagine being in her condition and saying,”I think about how good he’s been to me. He’s been awfully good to me in my life, you know. . . .
I’m one of those kind who’s mostly satisfied.” This is the Twenty-third Psalm come to life: “The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want.”
For anyone who really saw Mabel—who was willing to “turn aside”—a hospital bed became a burning bush; a place where this ordinary and pain-
filled world was visited by the presence of God. When others saw the life in that hospital bed, they wanted to take off their shoes. The lid
was off the terrarium. Then the turn came, with a catch of the breath, and a beating of the heart, and tears. They were standing on holy
ground.
Do you believe such a life is possible for an ordinary human being?
On the Writing Off Of
We are creatures of time and space. We must prioritize our time, energy, resources, attention. When we write things, people, institutions off we make an economic decision. “I will invest in this, but not that.” We have to do this, it’s a function of what we are. A practical “writing off” is a necessity that all of us embrace every day. There is a deeper “writing off” in the heart, however, that is a different matter.
The complaint here is that some are writing off others. One group says to another “We don’t need you. You’re defective (unlike us). You either are something or you’ve done something or you’ve embraced something that justifies our exclusion of our, our attempt to marginalize you, our desire that you no longer factor into the world we wish to create.”
By virtue of this marvelous agency humanity’s been given, no one holds a monopoly on the capacity of “writing off”. Writing off initially seems to ask very little of us. It is a small mental re-categorization. We have simply slid one or more persons or classes of people into a small mental category of those beyond any hope of redemption. At least they can’t be redeemed UNLESS they become like us, think like us, embrace what we embrace, etc.
The ease of this “writing off” is an illusion. What we don’t realize is that it starts out looking cheap and easy, but over time becomes weighty and costly. Every writing off is seen as “justified”, “caused by the other”. Unfortunate consequences are always excused by “We had no choice. They deserve it because of their evil ways or beliefs.”
That exclusion needs to be maintained and the cost of its maintenance is the loss of hope for community and the growth of bitterness of heart. We have to continue to rehearse the writing off, the reasons for it and why it must be maintained. We marshal others to embrace this writing off. We mobilize institutions to enforce it with money and power. We write it down in ink that we hope cannot be erased. We pray our children will embrace our “writing off” after we are gone. It consumes us. It begins to define us.
The opposite of writing off is love, but love is hard too. pvk