A Divine Appointment

I frequently find myself on a call after my scheduled shift is over. Part of being a medic is surrendering your time to your patients and your employer, who may need a few extra hours now and then. I used to complain about being held over, but I’m not as bitter about it as I once was thanks to a perspective that my wife shared.

Shortly after I began my current job, I found out I was going to be held over a lot. I got in the habit of texting my wife to let her know I’d be late. I’d come home and tell her about my day; how many patients we transported, if I prayed with anyone, and if anyone was healed.

After a while, she noticed a pattern.

One day as I told her about a suicidal patient we transported that I prayed with, she said, “Honey, I know there’s always a good reason when you’re late. Haven’t you noticed that every time you’re late, there’s someone you get to pray with or give an encouraging word to? God has these divine appointments for you, and I’m okay with it.”

I’d never really considered that. And of course, she was right. I’ve been keeping an eye on the kind of people we transport after the end of our shift and almost every time, it’s someone who needs a touch from God. Today was no exception.

We transported a 64-year-old woman with weakness in her right leg for two weeks. She didn’t think much of it, but she went to see her primary care doctor who did some blood tests and ordered a CAT scan to be done the following week.

The results from the scan came back. But her doctor didn’t tell her what was wrong. He told her to go to an emergency room and have them evaluate her. So she did. The ER discovered that she had a large brain tumor. We were transporting her to another hospital for neurosurgery.

We got her loaded and went en route. The freeways were jammed with traffic, so we took surface roads.

She seemed too happy to be someone who just found out she had a brain tumor. I wondered if she even knew about it. On a hunch that perhaps they didn’t tell her, and being concerned that if I mentioned the word ‘tumor’ she might panic, I decided to find out what she knew.

“So exactly what did they tell you was wrong if I might ask?”

“Well… they said I had some kind of lesion in my brain.”

“Awesome,” I thought to myself. “They lied to her.”

Well, not technically of course—strictly speaking—a tumor is a kind of lesion. It just happens to be one of the worst kinds, and they didn’t feel like telling her about it.

Life’s a little easier when you hide those messy details from people.

I got a set of vitals, then asked my next question.

“Do you believe in divine appointments?”

She looked at me with a smile, “Well… I guess so.”

“So do I. And I think you’re  having one.”

I told her about the dreams about praying for my patients and the people who had been healed including a couple of people with tumors.

“So can I pray with you to be healed?”

“I’d like that,” she said with a smile.

She didn’t feel anything and our mobile CAT scanner was in the shop for repairs, so I don’t know if she was healed.

But I know she was blessed. And sometimes that’s enough.