We Live On Holy Ground
M y first year as a hospice chaplain was very hard emotionally. Prior to hospice I had worked in psychiatric hospitals. I was used to dealing with emotional pain, but I was not used to dealing with death. I still remember going into work one Monday morning, and our office manager very casually saying, “Oh, by the way, Mr. Smith, Mr. Jones, and Mr. Nelson all passed away this weekend.” I felt like I had been kicked in the stomach. It almost took my breath away, for these three men were patients I had known for months (names changed to protect confidentiality). During this same time in my life I was taking a chaplaincy course at a local hospital. I shared with my chaplain supervisor how horribly I felt, losing not only these three patients, but numerous other patients, all in such a short period of time. My supervisor reminded me of a story I’d shared with him, a story told by Zig Ziglar, about a woman who had terminal cancer. The woman’s daughter said, “Mom, if you get to heaven, and all the stuff they say about God and Jesus is really true, would you send me a single red rose to let me know.” The mother asked, “How am I to do that?” The daughter responded, “God can do anything.” They agreed that it would be a secret between the two of them, and they would not share it with a soul.—A few weeks later at the funeral the daughter had forgotten about the rose, when a stranger walked into sanctuary, walked down the aisle, and placed a single red rose on top of the casket. Following the ceremony, the daughter went up to him and asked why he had done that. He said, “Honey, it was the strangest thing, but all day long I couldn’t get it out of
my mind, I had to bring a single red rose!” My supervisor, knowing this story, said, “Close your eyes. Now visualize taking single red roses and place one on each of the ten caskets of the ten patients you knew who died.”—When I went through that little exercise I was expecting to feel a lot of loss and sadness. To my surprise, the overwhelming feeling that hit me was that I had been walking on holy ground.—And it is true. It doesn’t get a whole lot closer between heaven and earth than at a dying person’s bedside. Once I received a call from the family of a very close friend of mine, a woman whose husband had been a patient of mine. I had even preached her husband’s funeral. His wife had gone in for a routine surgery when tragedy hit. She had internal bleeding and they had to do a second surgery to stop the bleeding. Her body wasn’t strong enough and she went into a coma and was actively dying when I arrived at the Intensive Care Unit. The family made the hard decision to take her off life support. I had everyone in the room share any last words of love with her, as though she could hear (Hearing is the last thing to go when a patient is dying.). Following the goodbyes, everyone left the room except the doctor, two nurses, and myself. They took her off life-support and then they left me alone with her. For the last 10-15 minutes of her life I held her hand and prayed for her as she went to be with the Lord. It was one of the most sacred moments of my entire life. I truly believe I had been on holy ground. d Holy Ground
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