Hope Renewed

     The first time I saw Hope she was sitting in a chair in a large sterile looking room in a very old psychiatric hospital where several other patients were sitting. I noticed some of them were catatonic. I was a twenty-two year old nursing student and I had never actually seen a catatonic person. When I sat down next to Hope, she looked at me and mumbled something. I couldn’t understand what she was trying to say. Hope’s mumbling was very garbled. It didn’t make any sense. She was tall and slender with a pot belly, whispy gray hair and very sunken eyes. She acknowledged I was there, but you sensed she was also far away in thought.

     Hope had been at St Elizabeths Hospital for most of her life. I don’t recall what initially brought her there. I remember it was warm that fall, so I could take Hope outside for a walk. Then we would sit on a bench and I would share verses with her and tell her about Jesus. Sometimes I would sing hymns and pray with her. I knew she needed Jesus and the love and comfort only God could give to her. I also knew I was walking on thin ice professionally. But I must confess, I also knew she could not speak or communicate her thoughts very easily. Every time I arrived, Hope would be waiting by the door wearing her sweater. I could tell she really enjoyed the songs and hearing about Jesus.

     It was hard leaving Hope when our time at St Elizabeths was over.

     The following semester we went back to St Elizabeths, but this time we went to a different part of the campus. When our professor was finished giving us instructions about our new assignments and everyone got up to leave, she called me back. I remember being so perplexed wondering what she wanted to talk to me about. “There are a group of nurses from the last ward we were at last semester that are looking for you,” she said. Then added, “and I don’t want you to go with them. You ended your relationship with your patient and it needs to stay that way for her sake.” “Why are they looking for me?” I asked. She looked at me so intently, “they said that they have never seen a patient change so drastically. They want to know what you did with her.” Then she asked,” What did you do?” Busted. “Um, I’m pretty sure you will not like the answer.” I told her how I shared my faith, etc. and she told me that I was walking on thin ice. I also told her that I didn’t do anything to change Hope so drastically, God did. I can’t change people. I can share my faith, but only God can actually change someone.

     I knew in my heart that God reached into Hope’s heart and met her in her darkness and saved her. There is no other explanation. For forty-five years the Lord continues to remind me of Hope and how He can do the impossible. I can have hope because the Lord gives me hope. God renamed my precious lady Hope in my heart. I know she is in Heaven with her Savior.

Written by Nancy Talbot