Never underestimate the power of love. Love has been known to change lives, and take lives. When the author of 1 John was asked to describe God, he simply said, “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16). The goodness of God is love. The power of God is love. Many believe love holds the power of healing. After an experience I had several years ago, I, too, believe that loves brings healing. It is a very personal story. If you find it to be be too personal, please forgive me. I write of it here because it powerfully illustrates what I believe love can do. If you enter enter the process of church transformation, you will need the power of love at work in the church.
It was just a few years ago. It was a Saturday night. Really it was the wee hours of Sunday morning. Five of us shared a room. We spent the night together. It was a room for one, but we all managed to squeeze in. We all knew each other. In fact, we are related...enjoy each other's company...love each other. But not one of us really wanted to be there.
It was an expensive room. My guess it went for about $2,000 a night. Good view of the city. Nothing else special about it. There was no pool available. No jacuzzi. The only meals available were in the cafeteria. The room service was nonexistent. The floors weren't carpeted. I have seen larger bathrooms on a bus. No doubt what made the room expensive was the equipment: the monitors, IV pumps, electric multi-position bed, oxygen, vacuum pumps, and cabinets of medical supplies. The room we shared was room 466 in the intensive care unit of Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky.
I had received the ominous telephone call earlier that evening: “your brother has taken a turn for the worse, and we want his family to come to the hospital.” I used to work in a hospital so I know that the “turn for the worse” line is “medicalese” for “your loved one just died, and we want you to come to the hospital so we can tell you to your face that he has died.” So I went to the hospital without much hope.
Being hospital savvy and knowing I would be arriving in the middle of the night, I wore a tie and my clergy name badge. Instead of stopping me, the security guard in the ER showed me the way to the intensive care unit. Instead of questioning me, the nurse in intensive care directed me to Mr. McConnell's room. Getting there was the easy part. Surprisingly, my brother Bob was still alive when I arrived. Just barely, but alive. My sister Kae, her daughter June, and my daughter Meg, were there staring at the monitor screen. There is not much else to look at, so every one in the room tends to stare at the monitor. And they were waiting. Waiting. I arrived, we prayed, and then I joined the waiting.
We took turns sitting in the three available chairs. We were playing a sort of musical chairs without the music. We wrapped up in blankets and complained of the cold. Individually and as a unit, we pursued the hopeless search for a comfortable position. My theory is that hospital chairs are designed to be uncomfortable to make one miserable enough to go home. Nevertheless, we sought sleep, and we resisted sleep. We talked. We talked to Bob, and we talked about Bob. We talked about better days and family and how and what our children and grandchildren are doing and whatever happened to old what's-his-name and spouses and ex-spouses and what had been and what could have been and what should have been. We stood by the the bed and held Bob's hand and looked into his tired face and listened to his labored breathing and prayed and wept and hoped against hope.
Morning came. Bob was not only still alive, but just a little bit better and rallying quickly. His doctor showed up and was amazed to find him alive.
The doctor didn't quite know to make of it. Blood pressure – up. Blood oxygen – up. Lungs – clear. Temperature – down. It was amazing. The doctor wondered aloud, “How did this happen?”
We didn't know. He held the only medical degree in the room. I have a theory. A popular Christian song says, “In this very room there is quite enough love for one like me.”
I believe in that very room in the intensive care unit of Jewish Hospital there was quite enough love for Bob. Enough love for Bob – for Bob to live through the night. For Bob to recover and be living with his children and grandchildren.
Ask me, and I will tell you that it is true. You can live on love. Love powerful enough to work miracles and bring healing. My hope is that we all find a room like that very room I was blessed to spend that Saturday night in. It was a miserably marvelous room. It was a room filled to overflowing with love.
William T. McConnell
Renew Your Congregation
Chalice Press (1997)
pp 102-104
