Yesterday, after our morning staff meeting, I drove to Jackson to visit a woman who has had a stroke. She is at Allegiance Hospital. She and her husband were driving home to Adrian when she began to act strangely, causing them to stop in Jackson. She had just completed radiation treatments for breast cancer, and they were feeling though they were in the clear at last. Now this. I read Psalms to her and prayed for her and her husband. On leaving I said to him, ‘I will hold you in the light.’ After Jackson, I drove to Chelsea to visit a retired minister, a dear friend who is recovering from pneumonia. He is 88 (I think). He referred to pneumonia as ‘an old man’s friend.’ When I asked if he needed a friend, he didn’t give a clear answer. He may rally, or he may be failing at last. Time will say. He looked very tired from his ordeal.

On leaving I received a text message from our church secretary alerting me to the need for another visit with a man at an assisted living facility back in Adrian. While driving to this visit, I wondered how I would have any energy later that evening for our administrative board meeting, before which I had counted on a bit of down time. I saw a bird soaring to the right side of the car. I sensed the Spirit say to me, ‘ You can fly if you rely on my energy to lift you up. You can soar too.’ A divine energy can flow in and through me on days when the needs crowd and bleed into one another. Brother Lawrence says, ‘They who have the wind of the Holy Spirit move forward even in their sleep.’

I made the third visit. It was with a WW2 vet who needed someone to listen to his stories.