Finding Jesus

Tony Campolo is a man I admire. I share many of his views. Tony once said that the place to find Jesus is in loving service to poor and oppressed people.

Tony's wife Peggy, tells the following story that bears witness to this truth. Under pressure from her family and those at her church, Peggy pretended to become a Christian at age nine. Not only that, she kept up the charade for 38 years. Here, in her words, is how that chapter of her life came to an end.

....I learned first hand that Tony was right about where to find Jesus. It happened at the bedside of my dear friend Helen who was dying. Helen had always said she believed in God but now she didn't have any assurance about heaven or peace about dying and there I was, her best friend in this world, not even remotely in touch with God, with Jesus or any hope of heaven. I felt more inadequate than I'd ever felt in my life. Helen needed God to die and I needed God desperately if I was to be any comfort at all to Helen. So I decided I would tell my friend all that I had ever heard about God and going to heaven. And after all those years in church I knew it well. Helen held my hand for dear life and I know she heard me and as I shared God's grace and love with my dying friend, the presence of God became real to me.

Helen grew too ill to talk after that day but I could talk to her and I did and I believe God did take her home to heaven even as I know God has remained with me. It was in my caring for Helen that I had come to know God. My husband's quest in theology about finding God in those who are in need or being oppressed became a reality to me that day in the hospital. You do stand with God when you stand with and for those who suffer.

Now, none of us can be a loving presence to all of God's children. None of us can even perceive, let alone try to make right, every wrong in this world. But God has chosen for each one of us those particular people that God wants to love through us. http://www.bridges-across.org/ba/campolo.htm

People often ask how I can be a hospice nurse. How can I deal with suffering day after day? Isn't it depressing? Isn't it sad? I'm never sure how to answer those questions. The truth is the job is difficult. Poll a group of hospice workers. Nine out of ten of us either smoke too much, drink too much, eat too much, or fill-in-the-blank too much. Yet we love what we do.

For me it is this one thing that keeps me going back. When I am at the bedsides of my dying patients, Jesus is real to me.

Totally, amazingly real.

And so, as I am drawn to Him, I am drawn to my work, to my patients, to their families, to my coworkers.

I can't imagine giving it up.