For Heaven's Sake
January 1, 1996
In this new column, Linda Riley reflects on the many people we encounter in ministry. Linda is a pastor's wife and director of Called Together Ministries in Torrance, California.
I hate hospitals. I hate the smell, the grim faces of the waiting, the pained, weary faces of the recovering, the factory-like processing of anguish and distress.
Years ago, though, an afternoon accident transformed me into a regular hospital visitor. It wasn't my accident that put me in the hospital. It was Yolanda's.
Yolanda was an imperfect stranger who went screeching by on a main thoroughfare. I commented to my daughter, "There's an accident waiting to happen." It didn't wait long. Two blocks up, Yolanda met four cars full of strangers. Her van turned over, rested upright.
Yolanda stumbled out as I pulled alongside. A crowd gathered, but no one approached the injured out of fear or perhaps repulsion. I locked my young daughter in the car and raced over the crunching glass toward the most injured.
Someone handed me a clean cloth from a nearby bar. I helped the staggering woman to lie down, cradling her head in my arms so she wouldn't lie in the glass. She had been just about scalped by her windshield. I applied pressure to her head wound to stop the bleeding while covering her eyes with the same cloth so she wouldn't see what was left of her shredded arm. Certain her soul would soon enter eternity, I ignored the crowd and prayed out loud. She was coherent, so I asked her name and had her pray after me, not taking time for the four spiritual laws. At my prompting, she asked Jesus to forgive her of her sins and to help her.
While I prayed out loud for her life, her appearance was so terrible I also prayed silently that I would not lose my lunch on the ...
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