Reflections of a Hospice Chaplain.

A pastor serving in the Villages of Florida Posted by David J Brett on

devotion

Years ago, when I was a pastor in Texas, I served as a hospice chaplain. A friend of mine started a non-profit hospice in Southeast Texas. He needed someone to serve as his chaplain. I am so glad he asked me to fit into that role. It was life changing for me.

Visiting people who are terminal and near the end of life is transformational. On one occasion there was a daughter caring for her elderly mother. This daughter had a successful career. She was moving up the corporate ladder. And yet she put her life on hold as her mother approached the end of hers. She had been an only child. She had the resources to move her mother closer to her and yet the daughter decided to care for her mom in the home of her childhood. It stood out to me that the daughter would sit by her bed and gently sing the old hymns of the church. The mom would lay there barely responding. One day during a visit the daughter said something I hope I never forget, "I am so honored to be here with my mom. Here in her home. The home I grew up in. She is a person to love and not a problem to solve." I find that quote so very compelling.

It is so important to be reminded of the quote, "we are first children to our parents, then parents to our children, then parents to our parents, and finally children to our children." There are seasons and there is a timing to life. The Old Testament book Ecclesiastes, in chapter 3 explains this timing. "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens."

We need to pray to be sensitive to the time and seasons of life that we are in. It is so easy to allow our agenda, our needs, our hopes and dreams to color and define the time, the season that we are in. Recently I read that there are "rhythms to giving and receiving care. We need help to anticipate the next season of life, to savor the one we are in and be grateful for the ones we have left behind."

"We are not problems to solve." We are people. We are made in the image and likeness of God himself (Genesis 1:26-27). We get to extend care to others. We get to extend dignity and respect to the stage of life they may be in. Because in doing so we are putting in motion a legacy that will come back to us in our time of need (Read Galatians 6:9).

Maybe, just maybe there is a legacy that will allow others to repay a debt of care that they received in their time of need. A legacy of unconditional love that was shown to them in the season of life that they needed it most. I believe that this is what it means to be human and to extend a life-giving, God-honoring, love to others. I believe this kind of living brings a smile to the face of God. Jesus said it best, "Love one another as I have loved you" (John 13:34-35). That is how Jesus told us to live -- to walk in love. How can we do anything less?


- Inspiration for these thoughts started with Jen Wilken, At My Mother's Deathbed, I Discovered the Symmetry of a Long Life. Christianity Today.