Hearing a homeless man’s prayer

After waking up at 4:30 in the morning and making the long drive to see my pulmonologist, my body is completely taxed of all its energy. I am running a fever, and my pseudomonas infection is raging out of control. My pulmonologist tells me to go to the emergency department (ED) for medical treatment. I am too exhausted. I go to the hotel and take a four hour nap.

When returning to the hospital, my heart sinks as I see the ED waiting room filled with far too many sick and injured people. The waiting room roars with the noise of so many people crammed into a space far too small. I check into the front desk. Despite having great difficulty breathing, the checkin clerk does not seem to notice my labored breathing. I am told I have to wait until I am called back to be triaged.

I wait and wait. Thirty, forty minutes pass. More and more mucus accumulates in my airways. I am coughing and fighting to breathe. I can sense the folks in the waiting room are becoming alarmed at my state. A woman tells the checkin clerk I need to be seen quickly. Again, the urgent words seem to fall on deaf ears.

A man becomes enraged at his wait. A nurse informs the man they are very busy. It will be about eight hours to be seen in the ED. 

A homeless man approaches the checkin desk. As he waits to be assisted by the clerk, the man notices the dire straight I am in. He says something to me, but I cannot understand him over my coughing spells. Like lightening, the man springs in front of me, takes hold of both my hands and starts praying. He begins with the Lord’s Prayer and then goes on to ask in Jesus’ name for me to be able to breathe easier. He continues speaking a powerful prayer for several minutes. When the checkin worker notices the man, she demands that the man leave me alone.

Very shortly after this, I am called back to triage. The checkin clerk is chastened by a colleague for making me wait. “This is a ventilator. Did you not notice she had a ventilator? This is a very serious matter. We do not mess around with people on ventilators. They need to be seen immediately.”

The triage nurse takes note of my ragged breathing. She tries to find me a room in the ED. She looks on her computer screen and sees one room has just had its patient taken up to a hospital room. The nurse summons another employee to run back and get the room cleaned as quickly as possible. The triage nurse tells me she will not make me go back out into the waiting room. She tells me she can’t believe the homeless man was messing around with my ventilator. She tells me she does not want anything else to happen to me.

The rest of my ED story is a long story for another day. But I continue to smile when I think about the homeless man. He asked for me to have fast relief from my symptoms. He asked for me to be able to breathe easily again. It seems God heard this man’s prayers. God changed the image of a man praying over sick person into an image of a man trying to hurt a sick person. Due to this great illusion, I was taken back to triage and quickly given a room in the ED, skipping the eight hour wait. “Praise God from the heights. Praise God all the earth. Praise God for hearing prayer. Praise God for this homeless man, a wonderful servant of the LORD!”