JUST BE THERE…
It was the late 1960s and twenty-two-year-old
Kyle Duncan was a student pastor, serving two small churches in northern
Maryland, USA.
One of his parishioners, Mrs. Maude Stambaugh,
was the oldest living member of both churches. Frail and ill, Mrs. Stambaugh
spent her final years being cared for by her daughter in her daughter’s home. She was unable to leave her room except for
bi-monthly trips to a nearby hospital to receive the blood transfusions that
kept her alive.
When the young pastor first
went to see her, he found the experience quite difficult. Mrs. Stambaugh had an advanced case of Parkinson’s
disease. And her hearing was quite poor,
so he had to shout into her ear to be heard.
In addition, she was nearly blind.
As Mrs. Stambaugh’s daughter
excused herself from the room, he thought to himself, “What do I do now?” Seminary had not prepared him for this. He sat beside her bed, somewhat intimidated
and uncomfortable, before cupping his hands and shouting into Mrs. Stambaugh’s
ears “How are you doing today?”
Mrs. Stambaugh responded
with a pleasant expression and mumbled something he could not quite
understand. He was a compassionate
person and knew he had to do something for this elderly woman, but he had no
idea what to do. For 15 minutes he just sat
there in silence, until finally he opened the New Testament and began to read
some verses aloud. Though he read
loudly, he was not sure if Mrs. Stambaugh could hear. He finished with a prayer, thinking “Should I
whisper it or shout it into her ear?” He
decided he would simply speak in a very loud voice. After praying, he prepared to leave the room,
cupping his hands around her ear one last time before exiting. “Good to see you, Mrs. Stambaugh,” he shouted.
Of course, that wasn’t
really how he felt. He found the whole
experience to be extremely discouraging, disheartening and awkward. Indeed, he would have preferred to do
anything than return. But return he did,
for he was Mrs. Stambaugh’s pastor.
Every month or so, the young clergyman visited Mrs. Stambaugh, each time
shouting into her ear to greet her, then sitting in tortured silence for 15 minutes,
before reading from the Bible and closing with prayer.
Eighteen months after his first
visit, Mrs. Stambaugh passed away. After
the funeral, the minister was walking toward his car when Mrs. Stambaugh’s
daughter hurried over to him. “Pastor Duncan, I have something for you. This
was the last thing my mother wrote before she died,” her daughter said with genuine
warmth. “We thought you would want to see it.”
She handed him a note. It took
some time to decipher the handwriting, but this is what Mrs. Stambaugh had
written: “Please tell my young pastor how much his regular visits have meant to
me.”
King Duncan learned what we
all must, that our presence is
one of the greatest gifts we can offer. Though
we might feel awkward, useless, or discouraged, our presence with someone in
their hour of need is a most precious and magnificent gift. It’s simply called LOVE, which in the eyes of
Heaven is always a verb, a word of action.
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