Two Worlds

Two Worlds-Except for occasional outings of various kinds, my life consists
of two worlds. My Long-term Care world and my church world.

As you would expect, there is quite a difference between my two worlds. The
first is the amount of time that I spend in these "worlds". I spend a couple
of hours in church on a Sunday morning, an hour on Wednesday evening are, at
times, an hour on Sunday evening. Contrast that with the 24/7 that, except
for church and other outings from time to time, I spend in Long-term Care.

A second major difference is the atmosphere. Church has a positive
atmosphere with people focused, or we should be, on God and His wonderful promises. It is a place of hope. But Long-term Care doesn't have an
atmosphere of hope and certainly is not a place that is focused on God. For
the most part, it is a group of elderly people going through long day after
long day with very little variety.

I am lonely in both places but it is a different kind of loneliness. In
Long-term Care, I am lonely because I am alone a lot of the time. The nurses
always busy and don't have a lot of time to spend with me. I do get visitors
but not an overabundance. Anyway, it is not always an appropriate time to
have visitors. At church there are lots of people around but it  is really
lonely listening to conversations all around you but never be able to take
part on any because of an inability to speak.

But the most significant difference between my two worlds is the approach to
healing. Because Long-term Care is part of the hospital, of course their
view is that doctors and medicine have the final say. However, my church
world has a different view. We knew that the Great Physician, Jesus , is the
One who really has the final word. Medical conditions that at impossible for
human doctors is possible for God. So my church world offers me, and others
hope for healing, no matter what the doctors say.

Surprisingly, there are a couple of ways that both of my worlds are similar. One is routine. Life in Long-term Care is extremely routine. The same things done at the same time day after day. And, for church the most part, is pretty routine. The things done in the same order week after week. Only the things at church are a lot more interesting. However, in both places, from time to time something happens to mess use the routine. In Long-term Care, a variety of things can happen to throw off the routine. At church, every so often the Holy Spirit takes over and, then, who knows what will happen. Those are my favorite times at church.

One other way that they are the same is my focus on God. Like I said before, it is easy for me to keep my focus on God at church. But, even if there is no focus on God in general in Long-term Care, there is in my room. I have Christian music playing4 most of the time and, like I said in a previous blog, I am doing whatever I can to keep my focus on God.

As I was writing this, the thought came to me that it is probably the same for every Christian. We all have a day-to-day world plus a church world. The challenge for all of us is to bring the focus on God that we have at church into our daily lives.