Read: John 3:1-17

Four years ago, I went to the emergency room at Skagit Valley Hospital in respiratory distress. I had been treated very badly by an ER physician the year before when I refused oral steroids for a respiratory infection, so I was loath to return there. Unfortunately, I had gone from zero to seriously ill in three days as a result of Daniel fake-sneezing on me, and I was starting to get really scared. When they took my temperature, I had a decent fever and my ECG showed signs of tachycardia. My x-ray showed signs of pneumonia, and I was admitted to the hospital the second my ER physician saw my blood test results. Apparently, my hemoglobin levels were half of normal, and my room was flooded with people who started putting in another IV for CT contrast, taking even more blood to test, and performing an obnoxiously ticklish swab of my nose for influenza that left me wanting to shove a screwdriver up my sinuses. It turns out that Daniel had given me metapneumovirus, a cold virus mostly affecting children, and my body was unable to fight it off due to me being so severely anemic. The next morning, I woke up to a nurse telling me that my hemoglobin had dropped even more during the night, and they would be transfusing me NOW. A series of unpleasant ultrasounds followed as they tried to figure out if I was bleeding internally.

During the three days I spent in an isolation room at the hospital, my family and I were recipients of agape in a serious way from the people at St. Paul’s. Fr. Paul was there almost daily to check on me, and both Penny Worrell and Bob Johnson came to sit with me. I had phone calls from Sandy McDougall and Carol Boss while Cathey Frederick invited people to post kitty pictures on the church’s Facebook page to cheer me up. I came home to get well cards from numerous people in the church, and Barb Cheyney was on-call in case Daniel refused to eat by mouth for my parents and my parents needed to be taught how to tube-feed him.

None of this surprised me. Thirteen years earlier, the same love was shown to my grandparents when my grandfather Lloyd Cooley was in hospice, and it was the catalyst for me joining the church when I moved to Mount Vernon in 2016. I love being part of a church that shows this much love to everyone who walks through the door.

Lord, thank you for opportunities to show love to others in times of crisis and for those who show the same love to us. Amen.
-Jen McCabe