King
I don’t know what people do who are dealing with a serious health issue and don’t have a church family to help. Fortunately, I don’t know what that’s like because I have two church families.
I recently experienced an unexpected hospital stay. What I thought would be an overnight emergency room visit turned into a five-day hospital stay.
This would be an inconvenience for most people, but the hospital stay came with moments of sheer panic for a single mom of four children. The hospital was an hour away from our home in Chapel Hill. I was wondering who would help care for my children while I was lying in a hospital bed.
And that’s when I experienced something amazing.
Not knowing what to do, I reached out to Mark Smith, my pastor at Smyrna Baptist Church, Chapel Hill. He immediately mobilized our church to action and made sure my children were given the care they needed.
I saw my local church be what a local church is supposed to be in times of crisis. It put my heart at such ease knowing that my children were loved and had the support they needed.
Then, it became even more amazing. Before moving to Chapel Hill, we were members at Judson Baptist Church, Nashville, and were under the leadership of pastor Jeff Mims.
I reached out to some church friends and members at Judson who live near the hospital to let them know about my hospital stay. I had just gotten settled into a room and my Judson friends began marching through my door, checking on me and making me feel so loved. I was no longer a member of their church, but they took the time to make sure I was being cared for while my children were being cared for by my current church.
My nurses were constantly commenting on how many friends I had coming to visit. I was more than happy to point out how blessed I was to receive visits from these amazing people who were members of my former church family. There were prayer warriors from my workplace who also came to support me while there.
During the times I was alone in the hospital, I thought about how blessed I was to be experiencing how the kingdom of God should function. Too often we spend our time building castles within the kingdom instead of building the kingdom itself. What I experienced during my hospital stay were people building the kingdom one person at a time.
They saw another believer with needs and cared more about me than about which church I attended.
It wasn’t just me who saw the kingdom of God at work. Many others in the hospital saw it too. I spent my days pointing it out to my nurses and doctors. It was beautiful, and I was so proud of “my churches.”
I pointed it out to my children as well. They were experiencing one side of God’s kingdom through the love and care of our own church while I was experiencing the love and care of others in the kingdom. When God’s people are filled with the Holy Spirit, people see their good works and glorify our Father in heaven. Hearts are changed and lives are transformed.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to build our churches. I just hope that in the process we are stepping beyond our churches to build the kingdom of God.
I have another hospital stay coming up soon. I know God will use His loving saints to transform my life, my children’s lives, and the lives of those around me. It will be beautiful to watch once again. B&R
