In one of our former churches, there was a charter member I will call Mrs. Rachel. She was well loved by everyone. As she grew older, her health began to fail and she could no longer attend the church she loved.
She was finally hospitalized and was drawing close to the end of her life. The church family who loved her grieved. And as churches always do, they began to plan for meals to feed the family.
Surprise call
One day I received a phone call from a church friend to tell me that Mrs. Rachel had passed. I cried just like everybody else that knew her. The prayer chain was started of course, and the church women started cooking the family’s meals.
About two hours later my phone rang again. It was the same woman that had told me about Mrs. Rachel’s passing. She breathlessly asked, “Have you started your prayer chain yet?”
I said, “Well of course I have. I’ve completed it.” She said, “Well call them all back. She’s not dead.”
‘Are you sure?’
It seems that the family had declared her dead when she stopped breathing. But when the doctor came in to check her, she still had a pulse and was in fact still breathing. When she actually died a couple of days later, the question asked by everyone on the prayer chain was, “Are you sure this time?”
I think some of them wanted to see a death certificate before they went to the trouble of frying chicken again.
Church stories are always the best stories, and the love of a church family is sweet. During this month when our thoughts often turn to love, why not find a unique way to show love to someone in your church family? We are blessed to know the unconditional love of Jesus and share it with those around us.
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