For those who have visited a nursing home or a medical care facility, you know what I mean when I refer to these places as difficult and uncomfortable. The sights and sounds are difficult for our emotions to process, which explains why many would rather avoid them altogether.
I’ve heard people say they dislike hospitals, nursing homes or funerals, and this is usually because they prompt us to think more deeply about our own future. When we look around and witness how individuals are coping with aging and health problems, it’s a normal response to live in denial as the old saying reminds us, “Out of sight, out of mind,” however, let us not avoid those who suffer or live in fear about our own future because God reminds us for example in Psalm 27 that he will always be with us and help us.
The Lord is filled with compassion and desires for us to have empathy toward others and to see the world as he sees it. “Blessed be God, even the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God” II Corinthians 1:3-4.
We are not here to just selfishly enjoy our blessings, but, as Matthew chapter seven mentions, we are to do unto others as we would like others to do unto us. Helen Keller is quoted as saying, “Once I knew only darkness and stillness … my life was without past or future, but a little word from the fingers of another fell into my hand that clutched at emptiness, and my heart leaped to the rapture of living.”
My friend Ian White, who is a highly intelligent and humorous newspaper editor, shared a story with me about his experiences with nursing homes. He said that many years ago, when he was still living in England, he was the chairman of his hometown’s carnival association, which included an elaborate parade featuring the annual carnival queen and her court of two princesses. These beautiful young women, who had won beauty pageants the previous fall, were now ready to embark on a celebrity tour.