Right Place at Right Time

By George Dalton –

Have you ever know beyond a shadow of doubt that God has just placed you in the right place at the exact right time.   Marveled at how little control you had over it.   Every Sunday my wife and I visit a nursing home near our home, we have seven or eight old ladies who are members of our church who are residents there. Our Church has assigned us the job of ministering to those ladies. It is a labor of love each Sunday we read scriptures, pray with them, and just visit.  Most of these ladies are in their eighties and nineties, many are bed-fast.   Oh what lovely ladies they are. I am always teasing them about their “new boy friends” and social life.

As we walk the halls we stop and speak to each patient sitting in his or her wheel chair in the halls. Last Sunday as my wife and I were leaving one of out lady’s room a woman almost ran out of the door across the hall and stopped me.

She asked, “Do you come to see that lady often?”

“Every Sunday” I replied.

“My mother is dying can you come in and pray for her?”

Now remember I am not an ordained minister, you might call me a lay minister, but a more accurate description would be a man that God has incredibly blessed.  I stopped and said, “By all means, what is her name?”

The woman told me a name but said, “Everybody calls her Sue.”
My wife and I followed this obviously distraught woman into a room. Family members were gathered around a bed. Lying in the bed was a frail old worn out body, the body of a mother, grandmother and wife who had raised her family. She had toiled for many years and was now ready to go receiver her award.   How did I know all this?  I knew by looking at the people gathered around that bed. 

One of them spoke up and said, “We knew it wouldn’t be long, we just didn’t expect it to be this soon.” Another said, “She is going home to be with Daddy.” There were younger people obviously grand children all gathered around a sterile hospital bed.

I have never felt so honored in my life as I felt at that moment.   I didn’t know these people; they must not have had a Church home, so they reached out to a stranger. We prayed for God to send an angel to escort grandma home and for him to send comfort and piece to all left behind in that room.   Then my wife and I asked them if they needed help in making funeral arrangements?

“No sir,” they replied, “She has a prepaid funeral plan.”

“Do you have a minister to conduct the services for you?”

“There is one old minister she always liked.  He is in bad health himself, but we are going to contact him.”

My wife gave them our number and told them to contact us if we could help in anyway.  We don’t know who those people were and we probably will never hear from them again, but for just a brief moment we were able to share the light of God’s love with a grieving family, and it was wonderful.